Well, you don't want to give the reader too many questions at once. But I agree, the history bit posted by the OP does sound like info dumping, however, sometimes I think it works. Dean Koontz writes a lot of exposition, but it is fun to read because of his great sense of humor, so he pulls it off well. IMO, dumping info is not always a bad thing, and at times it enriches a novel.
What's the advice on avoiding what I call "info trickling"? It's not an info "dump" persay. I don't just drop all this info on people at once. But I do tend to just leave little pieces here and there, often tied to the situation(I don't even know for sure which parts are necessarily bad), any tips on dealing with that?
If you need to provide information to the reader, it SHOULD be presented in kibble-sized bits, over time. Don't fix it, just make sure you aren't providing a lot of trivial data the reader cannot use. Some trivia for color is fine, but keep most oif the trickle relevant to the story,
FMK and Show... Not all info dumps are horrible and if the story is good enough around those info dumps, then the reader is likely to forgive the writer of their dumping habits. Take John Grisham for example. I'm still trudging my way through The Painted House. While the story is interesting, the perspective of the 7 year old boy is facinating, John has the tendency to info dump on the reader throughout the book. I am enjoying the book, but the pacing is so slow that I have a hard time reading more than a page or two at a time. He's a good writer. His thrillers are exciting, but then again he also tends to info dump. SO, either the writing around the dump has to be excellent, or you have to find away to incorporate the information in the story in a way that doesn't dump it all at once. This might involve adding scenes, or changing some scenes, or even re-writing the whole thing. We can't be afraid to let go of what we wrote to write it again only try something new with it. This is why I keep everything I write, no matter how bad it is, because it can always be reworked. I learned that from writing non-fiction. All articles can be reworked, spun a different way, or added too and then made new again and thus re-publishable. Fiction is the same way. For example of my own doings and dumpings. The beginning of my current story is my MC sitting on her back porch drinking her morning tea and watching the sun rise. She is ruminating on what she has to get done that day preparing for her husbands surprise party. All of the first part is in her head, talking to her self in first person pov. In this section I info dump a little. But it is so spread out through her internal dialog that it doesn't appear to be all info dumping. I don't get into things like, "My daughter was born on sept 21 1977. She had blue eyes and brown hair just like her father." that to me would be info dumping badly because no one thinks like that. So I have her thinking about her daughters current situation, introducing the character in little portions. I tried to make it relate-able to every woman who reads it as typical internal monologues we have with ourselves. Women are always in their heads thinking, plotting and planning. So this is something a woman reader can totally relate to and gain the information they need for further on in the story. The whole first chapter is essentially introducing my MC. Her way of thinking and little bits of her life that the reader needs to know to jump into the story. It also introduces her husband and their relationship to one another making the tragedy to come even more painful when it does. My point is that there are ways of info dumping without really info dumping. The important things the reader needs to know should come naturally, not forced. When we do a block of type that is just an info dump of stating facts that are going on, have happened, or are about to happen, we have probably created a boring info dump. But if we show through the use of our characters the information people need, either through situations causing an inner understanding for our character, or situations where the characters discuss the events, then we can make it an interesting information exchange.
I'm going to offer some objective opinion without reading the rest of this thread... To be completely honest with you, despite what people on this site and elsewhere tell you, a lot of well respected, best selling authors info dump. Look at JK Rowling with Harry Potter and the Order of the Pheonix. A better example? Look at anything JRR Tolkien has written! Is the info dump bad? In my opinion, I don't know. It seems to me that a lot of writers have gotten away with it and used it to their advantage. In my opinion, a little info dump can go a long way. Using an entire page to go over every single aspect of a character's life is useless and boring. But a paragraph of back story or a little flashback/snippet? It won't kill the reader... As long as you've engaged the reader beforehand an keep the short information necessary to the plot, there shouldn't be a problem. Unless you have a nitpickie editor or someone who's utterly convinced that a slight piece of necessary information is EVILLLLLL ~ InPieces
I do try to keep it relevant. A common info trickling is sort of explaining the character's normal behavior in comparrison to how they feel now. (ie Usually somebody would be fine but due to a trauma, something that they'd usually laugh off scares them into a frenzy) IDK if that is even dumping at all. lol Still new at this and decided what is and isn't needed. And isn't he like a famous writer who churns out a few books a year? lol I do admit, in the first chapter, I sort of info dump a little, mainly to get the descriptions of the characters, and also to explain a few things. Throughout though, I try to keep it to trickling. I don't go all Pushing Daisies on my readers. I just don't want info trickling to become a problem.
Too true. Info dumping is giving unnecessary information to the reader, regardless of how much- though the term is usually applied to giving a large amount of unnecessary information, any unnecessay information carries the same negative connotations.
Hence why I downgraded it to trickling. I believe the info can be utilized often. Sometimes it's tough to decide what is or isn't necessary. It's not always as black and white as it seems.
One more question: in my novel, the protagonist family goes through a tour of a science facility. The tour guide explains some scientific stuff (all of it is researched, factual, and true). Would this be an info dump? It is spread throughout the tour and the reader learns about it all just as the family does.
Info dumps, as I understand them, are a TV trope. "Say, George, did you hear about that new movie, The Matrix?" "Why, yes, do you mean the movie where ... [insert info dump] ... a guy who lives in a computer world escapes to become a superhero?" "Why, yes, that's it." However, information in a novel is not an infodump. You can't tell a story about a character unless you provide information about that character. You just want to avoid the awkward infodump style of inserting info about a character. The info you put in a novel has to be woven into the telling of the story more artfully.
That would probably be okay. It really depends on how you write it, though. If you can keep it interesting for your audience, then there's really no problem.
I wouldn't give your guide big long monologues though. Try to break up his speeches with little bits of action, like the kids getting into trouble, normal stuff that might interrupt a guide giving a tour. If you just dump scripted info dump dialog on your reader, they will feel less like they are there and learning about the stuff.
tb... it's not just a tv thing... it applies to all forms of fiction... and info dumps in prose stories/novels are not always about the character... in fact, they're probably just as [or more] often done to tell the reader about places, or events in the past, than it is to provide info about characters...
...not unless it's used to tell the readers stuff you want them to know, instead of just being a tour of the facility... . ...doesn't matter how you do it, so much as it does on why you're including all that stuff... the whole scene could be an info dump, if it's being done as one...
