Young Writers Society

Apologies in advance if this is the wrong place to post this, I'm notoriously bad at that.

It seems that, over the last few years, writing forums and blogs have adopted the idea that info dumping (describing in great detail a character, backstory, setting, or something, and using several paragraphs to do it) is a bad, bad idea. They say this makes the reader get bored or disinterested really fast and is a way to turn off basically everyone.

However, all of the classic authors I've been reading over the last few years have done info dumps - Mark Twain, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Arthur Miller, Mary Shelley, all of them - and some would even go on for pages. Mark Twain & Charles D. Warner spent three pages describing Washington, D.C. in The Gilded Age, and I wasn't bored at all.

So, that made me wonder if info dumps are actually more useful than people say, if used well. What do you think? Do you use info dumps, and if you do, how do you use them?

An important note on "classic" authors: They are not the authors of today.

Speaking as a reader, Mary Shelley, Mark Twain, Nathaniel Hawthorne—these people bore me. I wouldn't read Frankenstein again if I was paid to do it, either the first (very scientific and clinical) or the last (very poetic, as it was edited by Percy Bysshe Shelley) draft. I rarely ever touch a Mark Twain book, much less actually read one, because I can only make it a few pages before I have to set the book down and recuperate with something else.

Most classic authors use or have used techniques that are frowned upon in the modern day. This is because classic authors are from different time periods, where different techniques were in use and considered more effective by the reading populace.

Personally, if I have a choice between reading a selection that's an infodump and one that's a descriptive piece with conflict, I'll pick the latter.

That is not to say that infodumps can't be written well. Some are written exceptionally well, and flow at a good pace within their piece. But I would hazard a guess and say about 95% of infodumps are written incredibly poorly, and it's not worth my time as a reader to struggle through them when I could be reading something more interesting.

In short, if I wanted to know everything about something, I'd research it. I don't read novels to read essays, and more often than not, the information in question can be worked in much better with actual description and action alongside it.

If you tell me everything I need to know about a character or about the world in the first chapter (in the form of an info-dump), why would I need to read on? What burning question am I going to have about your character or your world that is going to make me want to keep reading?

I think one of my big issues (besides the fact that they're usually really boring to read) is that they give way to much away way too soon. I want some mystery and I want to be able to form theories and put the puzzle pieces together about the character or the world. If the author does it all for me right away, then it takes away some of the fun of reading.

Info-dumps also feel like information overload to me most of the time. If a lot of detailed information is thrown at me all at once, especially at the beginning of the story, I'm probably not going to remember much of it because I have no context. Weaving that information in when it becomes important instead of setting it all up from the beginning makes it feel more like a fun discovery instead of "let me explain this to you" interlude.

Obviously at some point you're going to need to get information across to help your reader understand the world/character/back story/whatever, and there are definitely ways to make this interesting for your reader. I'm not going to pretend I'm an expert on this because it really does depend on the writer and the story, but I think my best advice would be to make it as active as possible and to space the information out as much as you can. For example in a recent project of mine one character has a back story that's really important to who he is and the plot as a whole. I revealed this back story about two-thirds of the way in. I wanted my readers to really get to know this character first and be able to come up with their own ideas or assumptions about him. Then when it was time to reveal his story, he explained in a very active conversation with another character. He told his story to her and she was able to respond and react and ask questions. It's getting a lot of information out there, but it's done in an interesting and active way (at least I hope :p).

In addition to what Lare and Carlito have said...

I just wanted to mention that classics are great and we'll hold onto them and love them forever, but humans are built to improve. We're always finding new and better ways to do things. You see this in sports especially- look back at some of the feats that were considered outstanding fifty years ago, and then look at today's athlete's who, for them, feats fifty years ago are today's average. It's the same with writing, we're always learning and improving and figuring out better ways to do things.

I see a lot of info dumps in TV shows, and it's always like... the character might as well look at the camera and start talking to the audience, because the information their saying is only for the viewers- the information is in such an unnatural spot that you can't really see a way of it coming up in reality, because there isn't a need. I can't think of a good example of one of the common info dumps that bug me, but oh well. Info dumps don't have to be a whole bunch of information, they are often in the form of simply a bit of information that is just in the wrong place- like what Carlito said about giving information too soon. But like what I mean TV shows do, sometimes info dumps are just a super awkwardly placed piece of info that just doesn't fit there.

Anyway that was a bunch of ramble, sorry! XP

Info-dump is bad. For me, I'd like to have the relevant information only, just enough to make me want more, but not too much that I keep wanting to see the events that would eventually lay the information one by one. This is just what's going to likely happen in real life. We don't take everything in one gulp, we take it slow and steady.

As for a part of your post:

Mark Twain & Charles D. Warner spent three pages describing Washington, D.C. in The Gilded Age, and I wasn't bored at all.

If it's just the setting, I won't say it's info-dump. There's a fine line, methinks, about describing the setting and telling us informations that can otherwise be weaved in into the events that are unfolding. This lengthy description of the setting makes the pace slow, like Brandon Sanderson in his The Ways of King (can't help making his piece as an example :p), in which the details of the current world are described precisely. This way can bore the readers who'd like to see more actions and more character developments, but would satisfy those who find these details intriguing and worth-exploring.

Personally, I don't find infodumps too horrendous--if they're interesting. The problem with infodumps is that, often, they're not used well, as in they're only used to supply information that could easily be told in due time. One of my favorite books of all time is Life of Pi, and you could say that that book is extremely info-dumpy. Heck, the protagonist explains how he got his nickname in an entire chapter, and it's only important if you're interested in taking it into analysis. Lots of things in that book is unimportant as a whole, but at the very least it was interesting because the author knew how to make it work. He knew, at least in part, that telling the audience certain things will also show the audience certain things, which makes things interesting.

Let's return to the nickname. Pi's real name is Piscine, and that name is usually used by his schoolmates as a bullying tactic (Piscine sounds like something vulgar), so Pi starts telling people in his school to call him Pi. He treats the process like he would training an animal, which shows us two things: a) Pi is considerably intelligent, as he named himself Pi, b) he knows how to condition people and animals into doing things, which is fitting since he's the son of a zookeeper. The story tells us something, but it also shows us something. It knows what to say and what to imply, filling the necessary blanks while also leaving a gap for the reader to fill by themselves.

There is also the case where the infodump isn't treated seriously. Sometimes it can be treated in a comedic way, or parodied, which keeps the reader interested because hey, any guy can explain how wall paint dries if he's charismatic enough. This is probably ony fitting towards comedic works, light-hearted things, but it can be used in your standard work as well if you're in a first person POV and the main character just so happens to be the sort of person who would talk that way.

That of course doesn't mean I like the info dump as a whole. Trust me, infodumps are bad when used badly. But then again, so are a lot of things. Doesn't mean we should stop using them entirely--what it does mean is that we have to be careful about using them. If you're new at writing, I suggest taking the advice above me because they're the helpful ones overall, but I'm just saying that writing is obviously not black and white. Some things are used better than others, and that's fine. You just have to walk a tightrope on this one.

This is more in reply to "wasn't bored with infodumps."

Two reasons:

1- Every reader's preference is different
2- Those infodumps were done well, and very likely, when you look at them closely, aren't infodumps at all

I think there's a distinct difference between infodumps and exposition, the former being unnecessary and the latter being needed and/or enjoyable.

Exposition is required in fiction. I should know, because my biggest critique is people saying there's not enough. But previously, I had too much and went into infodump territory.

If you look at the purpose of an infodump vs exposition, an infodump is simply telling us information for the sake of it. Exposition, on the other hand, is a description and explanation of something at once. It's already doing two things.

Giving information for the sake of it is boring. I keep asking "why are you bothering with this?" because it feels like you could take the infodump out and lose next to nothing in the story. Exposition, on the other hand, has a why built in. It's got a purpose.

And everything in your story should have purpose.

A note on classic authors: they were usually paid differently than authors of today, which is very important to remember when reading their works. They were frequently serialized. That means one chapter was released every period of time, and they were only paid when the chapter was released. It was hugely beneficial for them to run their stories on the long side, because that meant more chapters, which meant more pay. This, however, also meant it was less of a risk to the publisher, because they could cancel not popular serials and would get money back after each instalment.

Meanwhile, modern authors are paid by the book or series. They get one completed story right in their contract, albeit a standalone or however many books it takes to publish the story. Printing is wildly expensive, meaning the publishing house takes a fairly substantial loss on an author before they make a gain (between the advance and the first run costs, not to mention the editor's time, cover art, typesetting, legal...). Modern authors just plain old can't afford to have "extra", non-purposeful stuff, simply because if they cost their publishers too much money then they'll never even get a foot in the door. There's a reason word count ideals exist in publishing circles.

So, as Lareine said, classic authors are not the authors of today. Their publishing environments were different, and publishing environment plays a huge role in what's acceptable or not.

Thanks, this makes so much sense now! So if I want to get info to the reader, it needs to be necessary and compelling and I need to get it across in an interesting way; otherwise, it's an info dump and should be left out. Thank you all so much!