What does "infodump" mean exactly? Is it just a euphamism for people with short attention spans? I think I've written passages which could be branded as 'infodumps', but I hope most of the time they are not. If anything, they reflect my personality. I enjoy getting into the nitty gritty of things, so in my writing, I do so as well. Some people have told me that they would like some "room left for imagining" or that some aspects should just be "allowed to just 'be'". I understand that, but I'm painting a picture and to me, that information is essential to it. Of course, we live in an Net age, and bite-sized and direct is seen as the best way to go. Certainly if I am lecturing or rambling when that same infromation could be revealed gradually and indirectly instead (probably to greater effect too!), I would probably rethink.
It's typically when there's an entire paragraph of history or background information or explanation by the writer, that puts the actual story on pause while this information is being delivered. So: "Hi, Mary, how are you?" Dan asked. Mary is a mother of three whom Das known since college days. She used to be the life of the party, but then she got sick...... and in the third grade she got caught cheating.... and 4 years ago he saw her at a party and thought maybe there was still a spark.... and their house dates back to the 19th century... termites were the cause.... her blouse was made in China, which considering the current economic climate.... "I'm fine, thanks for asking." And by the time she answers, we have no clue what the question even was because the story was paused for so long. And we have to ask what the characters were doing that whole time. Does it just take Mary 5 minutes to calculate how she is, or was she just staring off into space that whole time?
An "infodump" is when someone dumps a lot of info on you! What I said in a previous post is that your mechanic might do that to you, and in real life it might feel like a dump because you can't handle all of that technical info, but that's not the same as a literary infodump. In writing it's when a character unnatrually knows too much about a plot point, gives the info in one wad, and does so in a preachy or academic way. Again, if the character is an expert in this topic, it's not the classic info dump because people people can and will go on and on. Unless you have an expert character I think it's more natural to have them learn bits and pieces about the mystery of the book. In real life, if we were hunting werewolves, we'd talk to ten different people and get ten different answers about them. In movies, there's one old man who knows everything and where the monsters hide. Okay, well why didn't he tell the government this info? If there's confusion about the issues, as there would be in real life, the MCs would have to sift through it and determine the real facts for themselves. Example: Old man 1: You can only kill them with a silver bullet. They live in the old castle on the hill. Old man 2: You need to chop the head off and burn the body. That silver thing is a myth. And, I heard they live down in the caves by the river. This would give the MCs plenty to do and would add tension.
Again, this isn't what constitutes an 'infodump'. It isn't just any 'dumping' of info, it must be unnecessarily long, irrelevant and unrealistic. It's perfectly possible to write a passage of exposition like the werewolf example you gave, where an old 'expert' reveals plot-relevant and information in an engagningly written way without it being an 'infodump'. It only becomes an infodump if, for instance, rather than just telling the hero how to kill them, he launches into a detailed history and a too-detailed biological analysis as well, before getting to the point. Further, fiction wiritng rarely allows for information gathering of the manner you describe (and especially not film). The suspension of disbelief enables writers to get away with narrative coincidences to a certain degree, so it would never be a good idea to have your main character talk to ten people when one would do, when the end result is the same without thousands of words of tedious repetition.
Did you patent the term? You have a bizarrely sticky sense of the word and can't see that my post is about a literal use of the neologism AND its more traditional use. So, please read and think before launching into Mr. Admonishment mode. I'm not respecting it due your inability to think out of the box.
If you read the OP you can see that the person is confused by what an "infodump" constitutes. He suggests that the term is over used and that's could be due to confusion caused by running into large "dumps of info" that are naturalistic verse plot shortcuts which is what a real infodump is. I believe he's saying that it's a common, yet invalid, response to holler "Infodump!" at any extensive explanation.
You can think outside of the box all you want, it doesn't change the definition of the term. If you want to continue to misuse the word, that's your prerogative, but it will only lead to the frustration and confusion that were the subject of this thread in the first place.
I suspect that this--unnecessary overexplanation and excessive information, that is--is one of those things that _most_ writers get wrong at the beginning, and therefore most writers need the advice, even if some don't. This morning, I started reading a book in which the author clearly doesn't trust the reader to derive the most obvious information from the action or dialogue. - She explains that two women in a group don't get along, immediately before presenting a sparse few lines of dialogue where they argue. - She spends a full page explaining that a character claims to be able to see the future and what the village thinks of that, before presenting _one bleeping line_ of dialogue in which the character makes a prediction of the future Then she doesn't even trust us to properly interpret the words of the character that responds, even though she responds in the way that the full page of explanation led us to expect. But, no, that would be too much work for us stupid readers--she summarizes the response for us instead. - She explains that her MC is worried about a particular issue, then has that character express that worry in almost exactly the same words as the explanation. - She has the future-telling character make another remark, has another character sniff in disapproval, and spends a paragraph and a half explaining the reason for the sniff. - She allows her MC to speak one sentence in an effort to calm down the feuding women, and explains that her MC is making that remark in order to calm down the feuding women. This is all by page 4. There has not yet been a single action or spoken word that the author hasn't ever so carefully explained for us, apparently for fear that if we don't know--for example--whether Woman A and Woman B are enemies, or just friends having a momentary disagreement, our heads might explode from the confusion. Allow us to watch the interaction and make up our own minds? That's just crazy talk. So while, yes, some writers are no doubt entirely capable of seeing where explanations and info dumps are needed, and where they can be eliminated, it's clear that at least one published author never got this news. Now, one could argue that if the writer got _published_, where's the issue? They didn't make the book unpublishable. I'm too busy resisting the urge to throw this particular book against the wall to properly counter that argument right now. ChickenFreak
No, I wasn't confused at all. I am very well aware of what a true "infodump" is, and my concern is that it has been and continues to be misused, as you have. And because it has been misused, there is now confusion among some (such as in the recent post nearby). Normally, I wouldn't much care. But the misuse has crept into advice on this forum given by some fledgling writers to other fledgling writers, and in some cases the impression is given that virtually ANY background information constitutes poor writing. That is a disservice to newcomers who may be relying on such glib advice as "avoid infodumps". I would have to say that aaron89's characterization of "infodump" is exactly what I understand the term to be.
That's an interesting aspect of the infodump. It seems that it's not only a lack of trust in the reader but anxiety about being able to transmit the relationship via dialogue. It's a Microdump.
Friend: You don't know, and I do, so I attempted to explain how people can easily become confused by a "dump of info" which is a natural part of a situation, versus a true cheap infodump. I'm considering creating some kind of graphic to further explain the situation. Be right back, I'm firing up photoshop for a slick presentation! Stay tuned.
All right, Allegro, let me explain (and, I must say, this is getting tedious). My usage of "I don't know" did not indicate that I didn't know what an infodump was. It suggested a dispirited confusion over the current usage of the term, which you would have understood (I would hope) if you had bothered to read the next sentence.
Alert: it is tedious. Did you start the thread to initiate discussion, or what the hell? Secondly, where did I say YOU don't understand the term? You, according to your post, don't understand the term's misuse. Again, I attempt to explain the confusion. In the future, place a "Do Not Respond" tag on your rant posts to avoid time wasting.
Now while I find most of the criticism about what is and is not an "infodump" to be on target, I think possibly it goes too far in terms of what is in the minds of certain people. I am aware that I am taking the devil's advocate position (again) on here, but sometimes so called "additional" information is a positive to a book and not a negative. I think like most everything, it depends. The general rule is basically to ask first if it is entirely needed? and then, only if it is to show instead of tell wherever possible. But sometimes when I am reading or writing, the text seems to fall somewhere between, or even completely informational based, "telling" and not "showing". However, it is interesting while providing framework for the story, even and especially through the "additional" information. While I must admit I don't always think in the terms of "infodump" when I am reading, one author's work that surely comes to mind as one that some may convict as a repeat offender of this would be the late Douglas Adams. While at times he went too far even for me, I enjoyed most of the so called "excess" information and tangents he included in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. They were interesting, comedic, and generally aided to the feel of the book. Heck, they were a large part of the book. Which hits at my point where in certain books, theses information/substance based parts CAN add to the book's quality, and should be seen as doing just that, and not as something that should be avoided. More so something that should be used with careful application. Or at least done well. Of course by definition the term infodump is a negative one, so I am not defending cases where unneeded info is put forward in a less than appealing fashion or where the book would clearly be better off without it, so certainly no need to post same ol' same ol' replies about that type. I am instead interested here to discuss the wrongful demonizing of substance and interesting information put forth that actually adds to a story, instead of taking away from it, yet the term infodump may still be applied by some to those. Do others here feel that way? Do you know what I am referring to?
I agree. Adam's digressions were satirical, relevant, and hilarious - they made the book. The advice: "Show, don't tell" - is terrible. There needs to be a balance. Of course, writers can go into long and unwieldy descriptions of exactly what happened, but for the sake of pacing, telling is much easier. For Hitchhiker's, Adam's style is perfect. However, his style would not work for, say, Crime and Punishment or Lord of the Rings. Every story needs unique style in order to convey all its meaning.
I wouldn't go as far as saying the "show, don't tell" rule is terrible; I actually think it can be very helpful. Especially for beginners, or in a lot of cases for everyone. Just not in every case 100%. I was speaking more about sections of certain books that could be interpreted as an "infodump" by many and therefore believed to be a negative, when instead they are a positive. And if those who think otherwise did not take well-intentioned advice misguidedly enough to believe so stubbornly in a certain way, they would be able to see that as well. Like the Adams example, and of course many others. Glad to see that you enjoyed Adams as well.
I agree, too. An infodump is bad because it's boring for the reader, presenting information in indigestible chunks - at least, that's what people around here keep saying. But actually, what we should be avoiding isn't infodumps, it's boring writing. Not all infodumps are boring as the Douglas Adams example proves. Another point I'd like to emphasize is that readers - most of them, anyway - have a surprisingly high tolerance for infodumps. They'll read a couple of paragraphs of infodump at least before they say "Wait a minute - this is boring." This is especially true if the paragraphs are well-written and are not jarringly different in tone or style from the narrative that surrounds them, and the information they contain is interesting. There are no signposts in a good writer's narrative that say "Warning: the next paragraph is an infodump, so skip it if you don't want your eyes to glaze over." If the infodump is well managed, the reader will have read it and be onto the next piece of narrative before he even realizes that he just read an infodump. On this forum, readers read critically, much more critically than most casual readers read novels. And unfortunately, in my opinion, a lot of readers on this forum have developed a powerful knee-jerk reaction against anything resembling an infodump, and they start complaining about even one short sentence of exposition. Were they bored by the piece? I doubt it. If they were reading casually, they probably would never have noticed the infodump. But they're being critics, and they're not criticizing using the right standards. It's not infodumps that are bad; it's boring writing that's bad. So if the writer manages the infodumps well, not making them long enough to slow the story down, not calling attention to them with drastic changes of writing style, and generally not jarring the reader or causing him to yawn, then I say the infodumps are acceptable. If they're especially interesting, they may even be desirable.
I have nothing against large pieces of information, if it's well written and relevant, but I still have one advice against: don't start the book with it! get the story started first, explain later, and not everything at once. Pages and pages of info-dumping can be quite tedious.
I'd agree with most of that. Although my aim isn't to develop writing that just passes "casual" reading, and the proper type of information put forward in the proper situation will pass the proper critical reading as well as the casual. The one part where I seem to differ from the majority, is that I can find learning about information often as intriguing, interesting, even more so than a car chase scene for instance. Especially when it's put forth with truth in an intriguing way. Information, commentary about the world, about how people live their lives, the true nature of the universe and humankind can be more interesting and infinitely more meaningful than any action scene. Personally I think people are wise to get away from the term "infodump". It's lazy and misused. As touched upon by the two posters above, correct criticisms of parts labelled "infordump" is not because it's informational, it's because it's put forward in the wrong way. It's bad writing. And poor structure, bad writing, and boring writing can all take place as easily in conversation and action as it can in sections where information is put forward or commented on. In the end, it's about finding the right fit for each part of your story, and the kind of book you want to write. Not to mention how good of a writer you are. .
Infodumps and tangents are two completely different things. Adams and Pratchett often go off on tangents for the sake of entertaining the reader, not to give them a long, boring lecture on something "important". That's why they get away with it. Reading is entertainment; if it's entertaining, the writing works.
A nicely caught distinction that nonetheless may not paint the whole picture. The thought processes (conscious or otherwise) of two different fantasy/sci-fi writers: Notadams: I have laboured over my imagined world for months. There's not a chance that that effort will go unrecognised. I must get it all down. I'm a nerd; my readers are nerds: I imagine a fifteen page treatise on the mechanics of my universe will do the job nicely. Adams: I have laboured over my imagined world for months. There's not a chance that that effort will go unrecognised. I'm a vivacious and lively fellow, if somewhat nerdish, so I fancy various tangential stories, sundry witty asides and divers digressions will give me the chance to communicate all that stuff. As you say: if it's entertaining, it's fine.
