Young Writers Society

Info dumping, we've all done it at one point right? Well if you do it more than you should this is defiently for you. This just came off of the top of my head and I thought it was a good idea so I decided to share.

Write an info dump, I know you're not supposed to do it but write it, and keep it with your story. Not in your story. When you have your info dump handy, you can go through and ease all your details into the story without forgetting stuff, or making a character profile.

I say that ^^ because for me, character profiles are the kiss of death for a story. Well I hope that helps it will certiantly help me.

*moved to writing tips*

Just remember that you don't have to keep everything in that infodump in the story- but it's a good idea. I had a super info-dumpy exchange between two characters that totally blew off everything I was trying to keep a secret, and I just deleted most of it, leaving the last line. It kind of rocks, now, because it's a good bit of foreshadowing without weighing down everything.

Good tip, author13!

Hmm, i'm not sure what an Info-Dump is? Is that where all your ideas, plot devices, character ideas , names and just generally everything to do with your writing goes?

Info-dumping is when you take a paragraph and two and flood it with information about a certian place and or person, it serves no other relevence to the story than to discribe things.

In other words it's very bad for a story.

Exactly. Info-dump = essentially one or two paragraphs where information about a character, place or thing is suddenly and literally dumped on the reader. So, if you were describing a scene with your characters in a bar, for example, and then suddenly halted everything for a minute to describe not only your character's looks but what s/he was wearing, where they bought their clothes, a brief history of their lives, and so on...that would be "info-dumping". It's fairly common and can (in small doses) be handled OK but is best only done when absotively posilutely unavoidable.

Nice tip author13

Hmm, I believe JKR does that alot.

Tyd wrote:Hmm, I believe JKR does that alot.

...Yeah, she does sometimes.

Then you take a story like "Billy Budd" which is a series of info-dumps with enough lines of dialogue for me to count on one hand. And yet it is still considered literature.

It just depends. I despise it in any context, which is why I've never been a big Melville fan.

Tyd wrote:Hmm, I believe JKR does that alot.

Yes, but skilfully. You find yourself actually wanting to read them.

Yeah, there are good and bad infodumps...although most of the time they're bad. XD

99% of the time they're bad, you can make them work if you're starting a chapter in a creepy place with one like...


dawn slowly creeped over the edge of the horizon, the grass responded, going from the bent state it was in to a straight up position. the toads jumpped into the pond, waking themselves up.

so on and so forth, even at the beginning, before you introduce your characters it could work, but chances are it won't.

Ah, but that's not an infodump, it's description, which works beautifully when done right.

If I had finished that, it would've been an info dump, I woulda gone on to describe trees, what the swamp looked like, what the nearby village was like, what the people there were like, i'd probably even end up describing all the people there before my character.

*smacks self*

every time i think about info dumping i have to smack myself.

Here is my dilemma and since it is about info dumping I suppose I have come to the right place! *yay!*

The situation.
My character just moved so I have the challenge of describing the new town and people. The thing is, it is just so much information that I have to explain it just results in a paragraph or two of just information. See, my goal is to give the info rather quickly so that I can mold the town to my likings before the reader's imagination can get a hold of it.

Any advice?

Hm.

Sid> Read a bit of the beginning of East of Eden. Steinbeck did awesome of describing a town without boring people.

The problem with infodumps is nothing is happening. So if you can convey information while thing are happening, you're peachy.

And info dumps never work. Unless you're an awesome author, and in that case, it isn't an info dump.

It still the action. My biggest info dump issues is physical description. I always find this necessary in my novels, but then in my short stories, I practically ignore physical description. Instead of addressing eye color, hair color, clothes, skin tone, facial features, height, etc. the character's personality creates a physical look for them in the reader's mind. I let the reader make it up. I'm amazing at this in short stories--why I am so stubborn about adding in the physical descriptions in novels is beyond me. If I can work without them, I'm better for it.

But with novels, I usually know the physical descriptions, and it's important for me. So... I'm just bad at novels XD