Beware The Info Dump

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every now and then, so they let it slide. The during World War 2, we had the highest per capita amount of men go off to the war.” Shawn then goes on to tell Danielle everything from the 1950s up to today during the COVID pandemic.That type of thing could also be done as narrative or exposition — but it should be avoided. You need to give your reader information in drips — an analogy would be, have your readers drink from a water fountain not a fire hydrant. And only divulge anything when the reader needs to know the information.As an example, let’s say two characters are going to open a door, one of them strains on the door and says to the other that the door is always getting stuck, the reader wouldn’t have needed to know this ten pages earlier.Other things to consider when it comes to dripping out information include how a technology works. For example if you are writing a science fiction story and they have faster than light travel, you only need to tell how the technology works if there’s a malfunction and the warp speed or whatever you want to call it stops working. And to drip

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this information out, have the characters try various different solutions before finding the one that fixes the machine and gets them going again.For a magic system if you’re writing a fantasy story, again give the information as to how it works piecemeal. Is there a cost to using the magic, show that when the character casts the spell. That cost could be the character ages, or the character could get exhausted from casting the spell and must sleep for a few hours after using the magic.All of this is the same when it comes to anything that you have to convey to the reader, whether it be the political system, emotions surrounding a place — one of the best examples of an emotion regarding a place is in the movie Thelma And Louise, the character Louise played by Susan Sarandon refused to go anywhere near Texas, so you know the character has bad history with that state. We find out what it is later in the movie — I won’t do a spoiler here, you’re just going to have to watch the movie.Show the reader the information when it becomes necessary and relevant to the story.</article></body>

Some fiction writing advice

An info dump in your stories is a lot like a garbage or toxic waste dump — it should be avoided at all costs. What an info dump is, is when you dump all kinds of background information about your story world or a character’s history all at once. It can come in the form of dialogue between two or more characters or long rambling paragraphs of exposition.

For example, take two characters, one we’ll call Shawn the other we’ll call Danielle. Danielle is new to the city, so Shawn fill her in on everything about its history.

“Back in the prohibition years, we had lots of rum runners come through this town, the police looked the other way — they enjoyed a drink or two every now and then, so they let it slide. The during World War 2, we had the highest per capita amount of men go off to the war.” Shawn then goes on to tell Danielle everything from the 1950s up to today during the COVID pandemic.

That type of thing could also be done as narrative or exposition — but it should be avoided. You need to give your reader information in drips — an analogy would be, have your readers drink from a water fountain not a fire hydrant. And only divulge anything when the reader needs to know the information.

As an example, let’s say two characters are going to open a door, one of them strains on the door and says to the other that the door is always getting stuck, the reader wouldn’t have needed to know this ten pages earlier.

Other things to consider when it comes to dripping out information include how a technology works. For example if you are writing a science fiction story and they have faster than light travel, you only need to tell how the technology works if there’s a malfunction and the warp speed or whatever you want to call it stops working. And to drip this information out, have the characters try various different solutions before finding the one that fixes the machine and gets them going again.

For a magic system if you’re writing a fantasy story, again give the information as to how it works piecemeal. Is there a cost to using the magic, show that when the character casts the spell. That cost could be the character ages, or the character could get exhausted from casting the spell and must sleep for a few hours after using the magic.

All of this is the same when it comes to anything that you have to convey to the reader, whether it be the political system, emotions surrounding a place — one of the best examples of an emotion regarding a place is in the movie Thelma And Louise, the character Louise played by Susan Sarandon refused to go anywhere near Texas, so you know the character has bad history with that state. We find out what it is later in the movie — I won’t do a spoiler here, you’re just going to have to watch the movie.

Show the reader the information when it becomes necessary and relevant to the story.