Infodumps.

[Tyburn]

It's widely accepted that infodumping is not a terrific idea - great walls of text explaining something in great (usually usually technical) detail.

What I'd like to ask is "Can small infodumps be acceptable?".

For context, I've just realised that there's a part in the early chapters of my MS where Space Captain Flight receives a distress call from a star system 40 light years away. Though I've not explained it, I do have the whole mechanism worked out - the Matrix - in fact it forms the basis for a later part in the series. I can explain the Matrix in a sentence or two, but is that an acceptable infodump? Is there any such thing as an 'acceptable infodump'?

What are your views?

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Yes. Sometimes you have to just do them and keep them short. But try with a show instead -- if the matrix information is coming through, on a screen, could the screen commands tell us what it does, for instance? Or something going a little wrong so your character can go, Ah, but the matrix does not work in this fashion, and scratch his chin in a wise fashion?

 

[Abernovo]

Not so much an infodump, but a sentence or two of 'telling' can sometimes move a story on better than showing something which isn't really pertinent* to the story. Like all things, it's a case-by-case decision and a question of balance.

*It might even be pertinent, but sometimes it's a small matter that you need to know for later on, but don't want to draw too much attention to, and slow the story down. A Chekhov's gun, for example.

 

[chrispenycate]

Like 'treason', an acceptable infodump is one which is not so called by the reader. You are, before everything else, communicating information; that's what you're there for, not filling pages. So the point when an interesting description degenerates into an infodump is the moment your reader loses interest and starts to get bored – a very difficult point to define, as it will differ between readers (there are a number of Chronites recently saying they skim Weber's technical details. Well, I wallow in the technical details, and occasionally argu – discuss points with him, while yawning over political evolution. Define both as 'infodump' and prune them out? When each is appreciated by part of the readership?), so personal judgement and beta readers will play a large part in the labelling process.

Take the technology entirely out of SF and you've lost the genre and the hard core readers. Overdose on it and you've lost just about everyone. I want to know how to communicate over forty light years, so write the passage; if the majority opinion objects that this explodes their heads, edit it out.

 

[Tyburn]

Abernovo, the Matrix would be a series-spanning Chekhov's gun - it's essentially communications satellites which send 'packets' of data through mini-wormholes. Several books later (after the war has finished), it emerges that some sneaky technicians on the satellites used to send themselves using the Matrix linked to matter transporters. This forms the basis of the Transmatrix, which makes spaceships almost obsolete.

I think I'll try and write the infodump version and a dialogue-based version and maybe post both to see which the good folks here consider the better one.

 

[The Judge]

Very often an info-dump isn't what is said, but how it is said. Integrate it into the action, or even better into someone's thoughts and emotions and it should be fine -- as springs and Abernovo suggest, it's a question of tell versus show eg in a very minor way, He decided the book was boring is just dumping information on the page; He yawned for the third time. If the book didn't deliver some action soon, he was chucking it out. makes it clear it's boring without saying so.

But sometimes it's not possible, and you've then just got to put the information out there as succinctly as possible to get on with the main part of the story. If in doubt, write the two versions and put them up in Critiques.

 

[Overread]

Another few tricks I've seen for dumping info or letting out information early so that its there for later reading are;

Excepts of letters, thoughts, new reels, historical passages at the start of a chapter. Typically not lasting more than a page this lets you fill in a little information that might be relevant in the chapter for the reader to know or might combine (each bit of each chapter starting adding together to build into the last chapters). It breaks the flow a little, but done right and you've a neat way to slip bits of info or even just world building elements into the story.

Footnotes; as fantastically used though the Discworld books the footnotes are used here to let readers into in-jokes within the series as well as to make new jokes or quips or even fill them in a little on the world in which things are going on. Never more than a few sentences but a good use of the method in casual reading.

End/start reference material as used often in books with a large cast of characters this is another way to slip info in a very literal dump into the book without it actually being part of the story. It's a good way to both introduce new information and to remind readers of key characters, planets, tech, events. It's also very good in multi-book series as in latter books its a key reference point, especially for characters who might spend a a long period inactive within the story. A few sentences on them (for example) can restore a readers awareness of the character.

 

[J Riff]

Do not 'infodump'. No infodumping allowed.
What a crummy concept, infodumping. Like saying- oh darn I have all this information and stuff I have to get into the story, what a pain.
I know it's an easy way to address a common writing fault, but.... 'dumping' suggests junk, gobbidge... info that is not really needed, or is, for some reason, hard to write? Feh. If the information is required by the story then by all means dump it in there! )
Better to focus on clarity, and story and continuity and correct sentence and paragraph structure and more relevant basic concepts. If you need twenty sentences of 'info' whatever it is, to keep the story going, then it isn't infodumping, is it? Unless you write it all 'infodumpy', that is... nevermind, I hate the word infodumping. it's safe to ignore what I say and go on dumping that info in der. If you can't think of a way to write it interestingly. )*

 

[Aleph]

A quick diversion, do you need to use THE MATRIX as the word for your McGuffin? Is THE CONTINUUM or THE LATTICE or THE FILAMENT or THE CROSSHATCH perhaps better?

I'm just thinking as the Matrix was a big thing in the movie of the same name, and also William Gibson's Neuromancer novels, you may be doing yourself a disservice by using that word. It's like "The Force" or "Avatar" or "The One Ring" now, you know?

On the actual mechanism. SF readers are pretty savvy too. You don't need to explain to the reader about electromagnetism every time you turn on the TV, or the development of the internal combustion engine every time you drive somewhere. If interstellar, Faster Than Light communication exists, readers will be happy to just accept it in the first instancve.

Later in your novel, during a quiet part, a character may muse on the technology inherent on FTL communication. perhaps as a segue from a metaphor of not being able to talk to their girlfriend in the next room. Be smooth and subtle about it.

 

[Cosmic Geoff]

See also the related thread on Exposition, where several Chronners have said wise things.

 

[jastius]

What about a name like array like a comunications array.. nav sat com we already use.. ummm... perhaps star satcom field array?
Anyways, if you throw in the details after a bit of action or reasoning for such, then it will seem integral to the narrative structure.
For example an assassin aboard a ship is using the array to transport themselves aboard and tech and security have to explain to the captain how they screwed up the diplomats cover.

B.T.W., that is such a freaking brilliant idea for a plot device, your back door transporter, tyburn. I am totally gobsmacked.

 

[Tyburn]

I would go with a different name, except for the idea that when it's turned into a mass-transit system they rename it 'Transmatrix' - a portmanteaux of 'Transmit' 'Matter' and 'Matrix' all at once, which is an idea I'm particularly proud of. It'd be hard to let that one go, but I'll see if I can perhaps call it something different, but similar. 'Comms-Matrix' perhaps?

 

[Overread]

You can still call it a matrix, is a standard term. You just have to be sure to be clear to the readers what it is and that its not "The Matrix" or even trying to be it (otherwise you just feel like you're idea stealing).

 

[Mirannan]

Another name idea - "Transweb".

 

[ralphkern]

Ill depart from the consensus here and say I LOVE a good info dump. Many of my face authors are quite happy to give you a ton of it. Baxter especially is renowned for happily pounding you with it. Reynolds too. David weber has pages of it. Arthur c Clarke was a bit of a dumper too. Dale brown... Well the story is probably only a quarter of his books!

What I'm getting at is that the levels of info dumps people are willing to accept is quite subjective. I love em most hate em.

I would say it can't be about what someone considers a boring topic. Kim Stanley Robinson used to give pages of explanation about Martian rocks. Facinating for a geologist slightly dull for me. Baxter gives pages on the design of spacecraft and the more the merrier for me on that topic.

A good example of someone who hardly ever info dumps is peter f Hamilton he tells everything within his story and mostly shows and doesn't tell

 

[J Riff]

I refer you to many tech writing manuals. Big fat books dealing with all aspects of writing- fiction, journalistic, whatever... I never, in fifty years, saw anything called 'infodumping' altho I s'pose it could be a sub-category under: 'description '. Bad word, no need to replace it, just get rid of it. )

 

[ralphkern]

Also as the topic of infodumping it can be a tool to give your reader knowledge that your character will have. Or conversely doesn't. For example in my first release I've info dumped a touch (not oppressively so as I appreciate that it has to be enjoyable to read to) as my characters are astronauts with an understanding what is occurring around them.

The sequal set in that same world that is my current WIP has the main character as a police officer (albeit a 22nd century one) and as such he doesn't have that same level of knowledge. For him spacecraft are the same as we view planes for example. He knows a bit about them but doesn't have a clue how they work. So when he jumps on a space elevator into orbit he, and by extension the reader doesn't know a hell of a lot about the mechanics that go into it. So all my home work on how it would feel as it rises, how it would take, how gravity reduces is described as sensations and shown not told. If he was an astronaut I might have described the mechanics a bit more but he's not and I want that same journey he goes on to be a journey for the reader too.

 

[Ursa major]

Infodumping may be a tool, but is it strictly necessary? And is it a good tool? Do we remember things more if:

• they're a kind of built-in homework, or
• they're woven into the narrative?

I would have thought the latter would have a higher success rate, particularly as the tricks** that allow one to remember various disparate things seem to use a location or a story to do so. And yet with our novels, we already have a story (one that's already meant to be associated with the information) and at least one location (similarly associated).


But no, let's just dump the stuff in there in long, independent screeds and then hope the readers will recall it when it's required (if it ever is). It's fine: we've shown we've done our research (and/or used our imagination); they've put in some (unnecessary?) effort and may feel good about themselves for having done it.



** - Those of which I'm aware, that is.

 

[alchemist]

Dale brown... Well the story is probably only a quarter of his books!

I had to smile. This is exactly what I remember of the one Dale Brown I've read, and was also the reason I dropped it after three chapters.

 

[ralphkern]

There's lots of research around learning styles. Activists,reflectors, therists etc all who learn in different ways. So yes and no.

What were really talking about here is enjoyment though. As I say it's subjective and I love em. As I acknowledged in my original post though I ackowledge I'm in the minority though but I'm merely letting the original poster know that there are a bunch of us out there who don't view it as a mortal sin. And considering some of the major authors in SF are terrible for it I would suggest there might be more secret infodump addicts that you think out there