HELP! info dump problem

[Droflet]

So I've been reviewing my MS (again) and here's the problem. My first 20K is cut to the bone, as openers should be. The beginning of part two starts with a 5k chapter that is half made up of info. Now, like everyone else I hate info dumps but the readers have been waiting for an explanation for 20k. I tried to get sneaky but I don't think I got away with it. I have the continuation of the story, that's fine. But I need to fill in so many details that I have a character basically recite the info as if she was in a history class. I don't expect people to line up to read this monster but what do you think? Could this work in this way? Thanks for any suggestions. T.

 

[HareBrain]

If I read you right, the infodump is about 2500 words. I think you might get away with it after 20k, if the reader really is intensely interested in this explanation, and if it's well written. But are you sure you need to explain all this stuff in one go?

 

[Chel]

I was writing an infodump yesterday, and found myself getting bored and eager to move the plot forward rather than reminiscing about the past.

The main part of the story was told as a dialogue, then I added a few lines of the MC's own memories and then I sent the MCs off to bed. Next time they meet, if they have time to chitchat, the infodump will continue.

...all that happened in about 600 words.

Did you feel bored when writing your infodump? If so, chances are your reader will too. Can you save any of this information for a slightly later point when it might surprise/explain the reader even more? Leave a few questions unanswered for a while longer to keep the reader in suspense?

 

[Droflet]

Hmmm, the consensus seems to be to fit it into the story in a reduced but more acceptable form. So I guess that I will have to get out the axe and chop in down. Harebrain nailed it. I hated writing it so it would stand to reason that people would hate to read it. Thanks for that guys. T.

 

[The Judge]

It might work, but as HareBrain says it rather depends on the strength of your prose and exactly how you tell it.

I have an info dump giving important back story, which is told from omniscient narrator -- and it is all exposition, no characters or dialogue at all. I think it works (and someone whose opinion I respect agrees), but it's half-way through the book, after 46,500 words, so anyone who's got that far would be interested in knowing what happened, and it's only 1,400 words in itself. I then seque straight from that info dump into a scene for which the information is important, with a good-ish linking line between the two.

What I suggest you do is write it in the most concentrated form you can, as if you were making notes for someone, and see how low you can bring the word count. If you have used omniscient narrator at all in the previous 20k words, try the info-dump as exposition only and see if it works. If you don't like the tone of voice used, try working it as exposition but from one character's POV -- diary entries, history project, a letter of explanation. If it still jars too much, or these devices have no place in the story, then you'll have to bring it out in dialogue, and probably best fed into the book in dribs and drabs. (Of course, diary entries and letter extracts etc could be dribbled in as well over several chapters.) In which case, make sure your narrating character is telling someone who doesn't know and couldn't know the back story.

 

[Droflet]

All I can say is yep yep yep. I'm doing it from a pov with the character basically reciting the information she has learned. But you and everyone is right. I need to chop this down, move is around and in any possible way diffuse the massive size. Thanks for that Judge. T.