Avoiding the dreaded info-dump

blacbird · Jun 19, 2009

dancingandflying said:
This is dangerous, though. Because sometimes info-dumps come out naturally, but don't need to be there.

Which is exactly why we edit first drafts, and should be brutal about it. The principle behind which is: The reader (and editor, as reader) doesn't need to know everything the writer thinks needs to be known. So when you put on your editor's hat, and take the inoculation required to separate you from that other moron, the writer, you need to operate with that principle foremost in your head.

caw

maestrowork · Jun 19, 2009

Right, there's always editing. It's perfectly fine to dump as much as you like in first draft if it helps you writing the story. To get all the information out so you have a good feel about the characters, but it doesn't mean that all stays in the final draft. the basic principle still applies: do the readers need to know?

Also, the way you reveal the information is important. for example, the "as you know, Bob" dialogue is just bad writing.

motormind · Jun 20, 2009

sleepsheep said:
Whenever I try to expose the information through dialogue, it always seems so forced and campy.

Then shuffle the dialogue around until it fits. That is, if you really feel that it's the proper place to do the exposition.

I myself am not in favor of rules like "never do this" or "always do that". It all just depends.

maestrowork · Jun 20, 2009

The more information you need to reveal in dialogue, the more you need to present that naturally. Avoid the "as you know, Bob" dialogue. And have the characters go back and forth, with fillers, etc. In other words, make it sound like a real conversation:

"I didn't see you at work yesterday. What happened?" Jane said.
"I had to go to the ER."
"What? Why?"
"It's a long story. I don't want to talk about it."
"Oh, come on. Are you okay?"
"Yeah, but it was a tough day. I was at the ER for, like, seven hours."
"Holy crap. So what happened?"
"Well." He took a breath. "I was attacked by an alien."

peachiemkey · Jun 20, 2009

I'm hijacking this thread so I don't have to make another about info dumps.

Here's my question, if anyone's around to answer it:

In my WIP, the MC gets carried into New Character's apartment and put to bed due to her high fever. When she wakes up, the two friends she was traveling with are gone. Her meeting with New Character (a future love interest - but not until later) consists of seeing him sleeping on his couch. Then her two friends come back with food. Everyone sits around New Character's table, eats, and converses. However, I don't want to write out the conversation, because my MC is still in a haze brought on by both her sickness and mental trauma from an earlier event. She's drifting in and out the whole dinner, hearing the other 3 talk but not talking at all herself.

I want to summarize the things she and her friends find out about New Character during the dinner. Since he's "New" to all of them, I think it makes sense that they would off-handedly talk about interests, aspirations, preferences, etc. Right now I have a pretty short paragraph consisting of facts, like this: "Aiden was a born-again scientist. He majored in Biology at Denver University, and he..."

It's an info dump, definitely. But it's tiny. And the MC is rattling off all these facts she heard purely to make the point that she doesn't care about them. That's something she would do. What do you guys think - is it okay or should I slice it immediately?

Salis · Jun 20, 2009

peachiemkey said:
I'm hijacking this thread so I don't have to make another about info dumps. Here's my question, if anyone's around to answer it:

In my WIP, the MC gets carried into New Character's apartment and put to bed due to her high fever. When she wakes up, the two friends she was traveling with are gone. Her meeting with New Character (a future love interest - but not until later) consists of seeing him sleeping on his couch. Then her two friends come back with food. Everyone sits around New Character's table, eats, and converses. However, I don't want to write out the conversation, because my MC is still in a haze brought on by both her sickness and mental trauma from an earlier event. She's drifting in and out the whole dinner, hearing the other 3 talk but not talking at all herself.

I want to summarize the things she and her friends find out about New Character during the dinner. Since he's "New" to all of them, I think it makes sense that they would off-handedly talk about interests, aspirations, preferences, etc. Right now I have a pretty short paragraph consisting of facts, like this: "Aiden was a born-again scientist. He majored in Biology at Denver University, and he..."

It's an info dump, definitely. But it's tiny. And the MC is rattling off all these facts she heard purely to make the point that she doesn't care about them. That's something she would do. What do you guys think - is it okay or should I slice it immediately?

Personally, I would write the dialogue she hears, and faze out the parts she doesn't. This is the most realistic way to do it. If she doesn't hear something she *needs* to know, her friends can mention it to her later.

That's a personal stylistic choice, though. If you want to make a point about her not caring, do that. Just make it clear that's a stylistic approach in some way, or it's going to come off as lazy.

motormind · Jun 21, 2009

peachiemkey said:
It's an info dump, definitely. But it's tiny. And the MC is rattling off all these facts she heard purely to make the point that she doesn't care about them. That's something she would do. What do you guys think - is it okay or should I slice it immediately?

Just let it flow naturally during the course of the story. It will become clear what job he does when he has to go to work, for instance.

CACTUSWENDY · Jun 21, 2009

This may cause some sparks to fly. Those that know me know that I hate fluff and am not big on purple prose for prose sake. I like works that get to the point.

I am reading right now a book written by a fellow AWer that has tons of info being dumped. I will not say who the writer is, but they have many books in the deal and have made lots of money from their work so far with more on the way. They are being published by a major house and all is going well with them.

I have put this book down several times already because of the info dump. The book is only around 300 pages. This is a book in a series. With this length of book I would have had it done within a couple of hours.

So every time we are told not to do this by well meaning folks we have to remember that it is being done and it is selling. I am finding that you write what you write the way you want and cross your fingers.

I don't think we will ever fully understand what agents and publishers want. lol

motormind · Jun 21, 2009

CACTUSWENDY said:
So every time we are told not to do this by well meaning folks we have to remember that it is being done and it is selling. I am finding that you write what you write the way you want and cross your fingers.

I don't think we will ever fully understand what agents and publishers want. lol

I agree with you quite a bit, although it's a bit easier for those writers have bee published already. New writers are being held to a much higher standard, like it or not.

scarletpeaches · Jun 21, 2009

And just because something's being done and it's selling doesn't mean we should do it.

I don't care that people get away with info-dumps, adverb abuse, dialogue tags and telling-not-showing.

I don't want to 'get away with' anything in my writing. I aim up, not down to the lowest common denominator.

ChaosTitan · Jun 21, 2009

CACTUSWENDY said:
So every time we are told not to do this by well meaning folks we have to remember that it is being done and it is selling.

At some point, every single thing we well-meaning folk try to warn about has sold or will sell again. There will always be exceptions, because this is a subjective business, like it or not. One person's info dump is another person's well-written exposition.

motormind said:
I agree with you quite a bit, although it's a bit easier for those writers have bee published already. New writers are being held to a much higher standard, like it or not.

Yes, because new authors are unproven commodities. But your statement also bothers me, because it seems to imply that once an author is multi-published, their quality is allowed to decline. Which I think is ludicrous.

Does it happen? Sure. But many of my favorite authors just get better and better with each book. They want to improve and continue offering their fans good, well-written stories.

But as I said higher in my post, my well-written isn't going to be the same as yours. Or CactusWendy's. Or this AW Mystery Author.

motormind · Jun 21, 2009

ChaosTitan said:
Yes, because new authors are unproven commodities. But your statement also bothers me, because it seems to imply that once an author is multi-published, their quality is allowed to decline. Which I think is ludicrous.

Does it happen? Sure. But many of my favorite authors just get better and better with each book. They want to improve and continue offering their fans good, well-written stories.

But as I said higher in my post, my well-written isn't going to be the same as yours. Or CactusWendy's. Or this AW Mystery Author.

And I couldn't care less about someone else's success, anyway. Other authors do their thing, I do mine.

Dale Emery · Jun 21, 2009

Nancy Kress offers this advice today on the Book View Cafe blog: "It’s easier to describe something if it’s broken. If something is broken, then you notice it."

So if there's something broken about the character's appearance at that moment, it's easier to describe. Are there sleep-deprivation bags under his sky blue eyes? Is his perfect hair tossed into a tangle by the wind? Does his $3000 suit have pigeon shit dripping down the left arm?

Dale

ccarver30 · Jun 21, 2009

scarletpeaches said:
I love you.

Ditto.

scarletpeaches · Jun 21, 2009

Holy crap.

Every day I love you more.

ccarver30 · Jun 21, 2009

Oh to be that spoon! LOL

The Lonely One · Jun 21, 2009

sleepsheep said:
I know this has been covered, but I am stuck and would love some input. How do you avoid the info-dump when introducing a new character? Namely, where the character's background and career are important to the plot, and need to be revealed pretty quickly after the initial introduction. Info dump, info dump, info dump. Ugh.

I don't know, I think I've just reached a point in my writing where I can spot a bad infodump like a bad regular...well...nevermind.

If you pay attention, you can feel the plot stop for a smoke break, the textbook quality of writing, etc.

I think a good way to get info out is to relate it directly back to the narrative, as in what's happening in the paragraph after you're done explaining something. It keeps it active, like a setup.

Like, "Suzy was a waitress in the busiest metropolitan restaurant in town, 'Rich People Only, Please,' and thus held the crystal egg she was stealing from the museum with not only perfect balance, but grace and a slight shake of her rump."

Of course I could just be full of crap.

blacbird · Jun 21, 2009

sleepsheep said:
I know this has been covered, but I am stuck and would love some input. How do you avoid the info-dump when introducing a new character? Namely, where the character's background and career are important to the plot, and need to be revealed pretty quickly after the initial introduction. Info dump, info dump, info dump. Ugh.

This is one of those questions that arises with great frequency here, to which there is one really good answer:

Get thee to a bookstore or library. Go examine how your favorite authors do it.

caw

motormind · Jun 21, 2009

blacbird said:
This is one of those questions that arises with great frequency here, to which there is one really good answer:

Get thee to a bookstore or library. Go examine how your favorite authors do it.

And then be totally confused since opinions about this differ a lot. Some authors just dump page after page of information, while others shroud their characters' backgrounds in secrecy.

blacbird · Jun 22, 2009

There's no absolute cookbook, motormind, for this or any of ten dozen other writing principles or tactics. Ultimately, you'll need to make decisions that fit your story. I, for example, find Tom Clancy unreadable, primarily (but not exclusively) for his penchant of long, involved technoinfo-dumps. But he sells bazoogles of books.

Ultimately, you have to figure out what works for you. If you choose to write like Clancy, I won't be reading your books, is all. Other people might.

caw

brnitschke · Mar 2, 2010

This thread (and topic) makes my head hurt. Before I came here, I had no idea there was even such a thing as an "info dump". At first I started freaking out as I clearly do quite a bit of it in my writing. You all made me feel very self-conscious. Some of you speak as if info dumping is not only a mortal sin, but doing so insults your reader and somehow degrades the art.

Well, I'm done worrying about it. I write info dumps because I LIKE INFO DUMPS! In fact, I have hated stories that do the exact thing many of you are championing - being overly implied and indirect, not explaining things very well, and trying to be way to subtle. If I'm reading your story I want to know what is going on and not have to guess about why Jack wants to kill Jane. I think the fact that lots of stories employing frequent info dumps sell well might suggest that I'm not alone.

So you can call me crass, you can call me lowbrow or even stupid. But I like what I like, and I think I should write for the type of reader I am, rather than someone like many of you whom I can't friggen figure out. If I try to write something I can't stand, I'll never make anything good.

You like the color red, and I like blue. So I'll write blue and you write red.

Thanks, I feel better now.

lucidzfl · Mar 2, 2010

wow. zombie thread. fuck it.

Slushie · Mar 2, 2010

Deep breathes.

Find your center.

Exhale.

Listen to the wind-chimes.

Keep in mind, "info-dump" is really just another term for boring exposition. Nothing wrong with exposition; thing is, keep it interesting.

third person · Mar 2, 2010

brnitschke said:
This thread (and topic) makes my head hurt. Before I came here, I had no idea there was even such a thing as an "info dump". At first I started freaking out as I clearly do quite a bit of it in my writing. You all made me feel very self-conscious. Some of you speak as if info dumping is not only a mortal sin, but doing so insults your reader and somehow degrades the art.

Well, I'm done worrying about it. I write info dumps because I LIKE INFO DUMPS! In fact, I have hated stories that do the exact thing many of you are championing - being overly implied and indirect, not explaining things very well, and trying to be way to subtle. If I'm reading your story I want to know what is going on and not have to guess about why Jack wants to kill Jane. I think the fact that lots of stories employing frequent info dumps sell well might suggest that I'm not alone.

So you can call me crass, you can call me lowbrow or even stupid. But I like what I like, and I think I should write for the type of reader I am, rather than someone like many of you whom I can't friggen figure out. If I try to write something I can't stand, I'll never make anything good.

You like the color red, and I like blue. So I'll write blue and you write red.

Thanks, I feel better now.

More than most of the regular posters here are published authors and professional editors. Might be worth your while to take their advice into consideration. At any rate, you're the one who came here to seek advice. They're not ramming it down your throat. Cheers.

lucidzfl · Mar 2, 2010

brnitschke said:
This thread (and topic) makes my head hurt. Before I came here, I had no idea there was even such a thing as an "info dump". At first I started freaking out as I clearly do quite a bit of it in my writing. You all made me feel very self-conscious. Some of you speak as if info dumping is not only a mortal sin, but doing so insults your reader and somehow degrades the art.

Well, I'm done worrying about it. I write info dumps because I LIKE INFO DUMPS! In fact, I have hated stories that do the exact thing many of you are championing - being overly implied and indirect, not explaining things very well, and trying to be way to subtle. If I'm reading your story I want to know what is going on and not have to guess about why Jack wants to kill Jane. I think the fact that lots of stories employing frequent info dumps sell well might suggest that I'm not alone.

So you can call me crass, you can call me lowbrow or even stupid. But I like what I like, and I think I should write for the type of reader I am, rather than someone like many of you whom I can't friggen figure out. If I try to write something I can't stand, I'll never make anything good.

You like the color red, and I like blue. So I'll write blue and you write red.

Thanks, I feel better now.

Publication is the ultimate vindication. Good luck home-slice.

Avoiding the dreaded info-dump

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