The Great Info Dump Debate.

[VKALFIERI]

Hi,

As I read through these forums, I'm left feeling that most of the feedback regarding prose between scenes of dialogue, or in fact prose of any kind is almost immediately considered info dumpy. Why is that?

You can't tell a story without telling people what is happening, and to do that you have to dump some info down their throats.

What is essential to the plot will need to be told, of course, there's a good way to do that and a bad way, but, why does it seem like there's a vast majority of people who seem to think that any sort of scene setting or actual prose "feels info dumpy"?

I've seen it again and again, and frankly if you lot that are so concerned with info dumping can show me a story where there isn't a lot of info dumping then I'm a monkey's uncle.

To me, to show instead of tell, you need to describe with all five senses, not necessarily all at once, but it helps to set the tone.

Also, you can't just write a scene as if it were a procedural report; where plot point A happened, then plot point B happened. You have to colour it in, and in any instance I've seen where people (myself included) have asked for critiques on stories that do colour it in, they're met with the same response. Info dump.

So, my question to those that are concerned with info dumps, is, what do you consider to be an info dump? Can you provide examples of stories that do and don't info dump?

 

[The Big Peat]

For me, the warning about Info Dumps shouldn't be "Don't Do Them" - it should be to use them like a really strong spice. You need a little to make things work, but even a little more than that could ruin things.

And, like strong spice, you want the flavour distributed as much as possible, rather than mounded in one place. The more you can weave in the info, the better.

So people always criticise them and for a reason. If you can avoid them, that's the right call, and if not... well, write it as damn interestingly as possible. Such as Moraine's info-dump re Manarethen in The Eye of the World, which is just awesome.

 

[Ihe]

We've all been guilty of this literary sin. Maybe that's why it comes up so often in critiques, as we learn to recognize our own mistakes in others' works. And info dumps are pesky. They creep up on you at any moment.

Info dumps happen all the time, in every book. The art of storytelling is, in fact, just one big info dump (some more embellished than others). Direct exposition--which can feel like a newspaper article instead of fiction--needs to be masked, or you risk breaking suspension of disbelief from the very start by making readers painfully aware that they are reading a book while sat on the toilet instead of bending spacetime at warp speed. To some extent, the art of writing involves fooling readers into thinking they are not reading info dumps when they are.

And then there are info dumps that are done just plain wrong, and those are the ones usually critiqued. It usually happens when the exposition happens at odd, uncalled-for moments or by characters that wouldn't naturally talk about it in a particular scene, or wouldn't explain it that way. To answer your question about what to consider an info dump, I'll give you an example that has nothing to do with long, tedious descriptive scenes: If your MC's dad's name is George but the reader doesn't know it, he won't tell his friend (who also knows his dad): "Hey, my dad, George the mechanic, bought me a new car!". In that example, "George the mechanic" is uncalled for and I would consider it "info dumpy", even if it's just 3 words. It is obvious that it is written for the reader's benefit, and not for the MC's friend's; it's unnatural and therefore you're killing the realism of the dialogue. Info dumps are not always long monologues. They come in many shapes. They have their time and place, but they need to happen organically and need to make sense in the context of the story. You need to write for the reader's benefit without the reader knowing it is for them.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

It's about how the info is dumped. So, yes, of course we have to impart info - and in sff we have the added challenge of presenting a new world of some kind - but if it stands out to the reader, it takes them out of story.

Some pov styles are easier than others. With a fussy, external, narrator you can get away with a bit of an info dump, with a close third style anything that isn't what the character thinks stands out.

So, if you're being called out for info dumping, it will often be more about how you're imparting the info rather than that you are.

For instance, let's say you have a jungle with a snake that's important to the story. You could tell us all about the jungle, and the animals, and that snake and we're glazing over.

Or you could set a scene in the jungle, one that moves the story on anyway (you know, the alien first arriving or the main character meeting their Deepthroat) and, during that scene, drop in some info (so the character notices the heat and jumps back at the dangerous snake), and the reader doesn't know you've done it, they just think they read a scene.

So, it's not how much you drop in but how and when, and how obvious it is to the reader - and, if it's obvious, that's an info dump.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

With a fussy, external, narrator you can get away with a bit of an info dump, with a close third style anything that isn't what the character thinks stands out.

Yes.
Yet the close 3rd can be more preferable for other reasons?

 

[Brian G Turner]

I could reply to this thread.

Or...

I could reply to this thread - but first, provide a biography that includes information that may or may not be useful in the future, and perhaps also stop in front of a mirror so you know exactly what I look like and what I'm doing now.

Which would you prefer?

 

[The Judge]

To repeat what everyone else has said, it isn't what you (ie "one") do, it's how you do it.

To give another short example: "Sally had a lovely smile. She wore a red gingham dress and had silver-grey hair. He hadn't seen her in forty years." That's info-dumping. "Sally danced down the steps, her lovely smile lighting her face, her red gingham dress floating around her as it had forty years before when they last met, so it came as a shock to him to realise her hair was now silver-grey not blonde." That's not good writing, as it's quickly dashed off, but it gives the same detail without being nearly as info-dumpy -- because it's rooted in the narrator's experience, not written as a guide for a casting director.

Giving information straight was acceptable in the past, but I suspect that may well be because omniscient voice was also acceptable and prevalent, and the two dove-tailed together. It is possible to info-dump and get away with it, but the writing has to be very good, and it can't be in the opening chapters any more, when you're trying to bring the reader into your world.

 

[allmywires]

Info dumping is the literal equivalent of standing under a waterfall and being drowned in exposition (that you'll most likely forget). plus also more often than not, it's boooooring! As writers we have a rose-tinted view of our world and think every last tidbit is interesting when really it's not.

Which is why sites like this are invaluably useful. To help us forcibly remove those glasses, snap them in two and stamp on them until we see our WIPs as the ugly info dumpy ducklings they are and help them turn into beautiful glossy swans

 

[James118]

In my opinion, infodumps are perfectly fine if they are relevant to the story and the character. Both criteria have to be fulfilled. Sure, you can give us a dump about what happened to this factory that Kate is exploring (for some reason, I'm flashing back to PC game Syberia), but if she doesn't know about it, how is the audience receiving this information in a narrative told from Kate's perspective.

Personally, I quite like infodumps on topics I'm truly interested in, but I know that many people don't. For that reason, if they can't be kept lean, they should at least be written well.

 

[Toby Frost]

To my mind, an infodump is the act of artificially priming the reader with information that the writer feels is necessary to properly read the story. As Ihe says, it’s the crowbarring in of the information in a jarring manner, not the fact that the information exists. The classic (bad) way is through dialogue, usually beginning with “As you know…” but there are also the tricks where the hero looks out of the window, sees a river, and then remembers how five hundred years ago the kingdom grew powerful on its exploitation of canal routes to deliver coal.

So, if a character enters a room and a fairly detailed description of the room then follows, I don’t see that as an infodump if it’s not doing things or providing information that the character wouldn’t notice in the circumstances. (Of course, it can slow down the story too much, but that’s a different issue). Occasionally, a very short infodump can work, especially where there’s a lot of backstory to fill in (in, say, a series) but I would keep it extremely short and resist the urge to ramble onto more general background topics: someone might remember that their enemy swore vengeance when he fell off a cliff, but not that the cliffs were on a planet populated by pterodactyls that could communicate by… etc.

A lot of this is confidence, I think. Some of it also comes from world-building and writers wanting to tell the reader the backstory of the setting. I may be on my own here, but I never find the movements of imaginary countries, myths, wars etc terribly interesting unless they relate to what the characters are doing right now or the setting is very high-concept and unusual. About 80-90% of my interest is in the characters and what they’re doing, and the background and stuff that would be infodumped is really there to give them motives and challenges, and not for its own sake.

EDIT: There are moments in crime stories where the detective pauses to think it all over and put together the pieces of the mystery so far. I'm currently writing a story about a conspiracy, and this happens every so often as one or two characters try to work out what's going on. While they probably would do this, I doubt they'd do it in a terribly clear way because people don't think as clearly as they do in books. While this is leading the reader to a certain degree, I'm not sure that I'd count it as an infodump as such.

 

[Old_Man_Steve2016]

One of my favorite writers (can't remember his name offhand, but he is the author of the Star Carrier series) doesn't do a lot of long infodumps. He tends to keep them short in scope, but at least 3 times a book he'll repeat the same infodump, like he cut-n-pasted it from a PREVIOUS BOOK! DUDE! We know about the 'white covenant' already! You talk about it every damn book! I swear he spends like 4 ebook pages a book on this- even when it doesn't add to the plot!

Do some writers get paid by the word? I thought that writing model was phased out (for books) decades ago.

 

[Old_Man_Steve2016]

I don't mind infodumps- just not the same info dumped in each book, again and again and...yeah you get the point.

 

[AnyaKimlin]

Am I infodumping here? Is writer speak for "Have I bored your backside off yet?"

Basically if it's dull it's called an infodump - the dump being the indication that it's full of crap that isn't needed by the body of the work. Now if you do in a way that is interesting, engaging and essential then it's exposition.

I've just read a sci fi that begins with two chapters of exposition and I didn't get bored once.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Bujold also repeats info we need at the start of each Vorkosigan book. It's common in series as the reader may come to them out of order. Less so in trilogies, where reading in order is pretty essential.

 

[ratsy]

There are so many things this place has taught me and now I find I really notice info-dumping in any form (probably not in my own work...)

It can work. I really loved @The Judge 's example of showing not telling.

I've been reading a lot of SF and one thing I notice is they often do character descriptions right away.

'he stood straight and tall, his hair dark combed perfectly, and his face set in a permanent scowl. He would almost be called handsome if he didn't have that scar across his cheek.'

While this doesn't bother me much, I personally don't like to do it that way.

I like to drip in some stuff and let the reader take over...but at the same time, in my own book I wonder if I've left out too much description on my characters. That will be something to review when it's done.

 

[NbDawn]

I'm reading a science fiction story now that is terrible about info dumping. 2-3 paragraphs are used to set scenes, explain past historic events, or to describe every little detail they are seeing when they go from one scene to the next. It is incredibly long and boring. A better way this story could have been presented would be if the details were disbursed more broadly, and in some cases, eliminated altogether when the detail isn't important to the story. It could have also been presented better if it was told with the five senses from the MC point of view.

I can see where there might be some confusion when someone considers prose setting a scene might be info dumpy. I think a lot of people who have commented on this already have pointed out how it's not that info is being dumped, it's how it's being dumped. I also think everyone has a different opinion about what is info dumping and what isn't. So consider your critiques in a broader sense. Take it more seriously if a lot of people say you info dump vs if only one person says you do it.

 

[zmunkz]

I could reply to this thread.

Or...

I could reply to this thread - but first, provide a biography that includes information that may or may not be useful in the future, and perhaps also stop in front of a mirror so you know exactly what I look like and what I'm doing now.

Which would you prefer?

^this

Basically if it's dull it's called an infodump - the dump being the indication that it's full of crap that isn't needed by the body of the work. Now if you do in a way that is interesting, engaging and essential then it's exposition.

Ehh, I disagree with that. It is an info-dump if it is breaking (or flexing) the POV in order to talk directly to the reader. For instance, if the character has to walk through the woods to find his sister, and yet he chooses that moment to reflect on the recent war that shook this forest during the last kingdom, no matter how delightfully presented it is, it's an info dump. The label indicates that worldbuilding is being fed directly to the reader and bypassing the character voice. Sometimes that may be necessary, but if you can take up the challenge of embedding it all in character, the result would be quite engaging.

 

[AnyaKimlin]

Ehh, I disagree with that. It is an info-dump if it is breaking (or flexing) the POV in order to talk directly to the reader. For instance, if the character has to walk through the woods to find his sister, and yet he chooses that moment to reflect on the recent war that shook this forest during the last kingdom, no matter how delightfully presented it is, it's an info dump.

The chances are if it hasn't pulled the reader out and they've remained engaged with the story they won't call it an infodump. Personally, I skip any walking through forest scenes that don't end in major carnage but I wouldn't find your example an infodump - necessarily - for example there was a major fire on a hill here in 1976 and I think of every time I look at the hill because the growth patterns show it. If there is something carved into the tree or a stump or a memorial then it's not out of POV to consider past events. If the war was recent the scars would still be there.

The label indicates that worldbuilding is being fed directly to the reader and bypassing the character voice. Sometimes that may be necessary, but if you can take up the challenge of embedding it all in character, the result would be quite engaging.

My favourite book begins with several paragraphs of back story and world building - the result isn't quite engaging but it is incredibly engaging. My absolute favourite beginning is Moorland Cottage by Elizabeth Gaskell and would no doubt never get published today. It's a meandering piece of description leading to the cottage where the story is set and again I find it very engaging. I've recently read something rejected by an agent which had a two chapter "prologue" and lots of description - I wouldn't have wanted to read the book without it.

Sometimes this reader likes being fed description and worldbuilding as long as it keeps me going and I don't start to glaze over.

 

[Dennis E. Taylor]

People are digital. By which I mean we don't like nuance. Something is either GOOD or it's BAD. There is no gray. Therefore, exposition is ALWAYS BAD. Adverbs are ALWAYS BAD. Telling is ALWAYS BAD. Multiple POVs are ALWAYS BAD (by which I mean that a lot of people don't differentiate between head-hopping and Omni).

I exaggerate slightly, but there is a tendency for people to repeat rules as absolutes, when what they really are, are Best Practices. Noob writers have a tendency to info-dump a lot, to use a lot of adverbs, to tell a lot, and to head-hop a lot. The advice shouldn't be "don't do it", it should be "don't do it except when the situation really calls for it. Try not to do it whenever possible."

 

[allmywires]

The advice shouldn't be "don't do it", it should be "don't do it except when the situation really calls for it. Try not to do it whenever possible."

Or to quote a classic pop song: "If you're going to do it, do it right."