I'm going to semi-disagree with the majority of this thread. I think that if the dialogue is interesting in it of itself, long passages are OK. In Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, Bradbury describes a dystopian world in which society systemically burns books. The main character is Guy Montag, a "fireman" who burns these books. But he begins to feel his actions are wrong. He is not sure, though, because his society is all that he has ever experienced. Then he meets Faber, a former English professor who explains to him what society was like before society burned books. This explanation is lengthy--almost a chapter's worth--and is done all through dialogue. In this chapter, Faber talks about a wide range of explanatory topics, including the purpose of books, the essence of them, and the reasons they are important. Or consider George Orwell's classic novel 1984. The longest chapter in this book by far is Chapter 9 of Book 2. What it consists of is Winston reading from another book The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism. This chapter explains to the reader, after pages and pages of confusion, how this dystopian world came to be. I can list a few more examples (*cough* Terry Brooks *cough*), but I think I've made my case.
You've got a valid point, but keep in mind that both of those things have a deep mental and philosophical foundation built into them - not only are they actually interesting to read, but writing them in any other way would be very difficult. Explaining another world that is different in function as opposed to philosophy requires demonstration instead of articulation. If you wanted an explanation of the origins of chocolate, then it would be possible to give a detailed and entertaining historical recount of its development. On the other hand if you wanted to teach someone how to eat it, a 5,000 word essay on proper mastication technique is much more cumbersome than passing them a piece and saying "bite down."
This makes me think of what I didn't like about Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code, the pages of explanation as to the hows and whys Jesus' bloodline. I think about how I would be if I were dropped into an unknown world. Let's say I witness someone jumping ten feet into the air, I would be confused as to how they did that. I would then ask the guide how, they would simply answer "We just can." So that rules out special equipment allowing such a thing and either makes it a genetic mutation or less gravity, which might be the following question. To me an exploration of an unknown world by an MC should be coupled with curious questions to the inhabitants of the world, and speculative thinking and deduction on the part of the MC. Unless the MC is a dull knife who hasn't the wits to be curious. Regardless of the MC's brain power, a many page lecture on how their world works is an info dump no matter how you spin it. Even though those supposed "Great Novels" like 1984 employ such methods, doesn't mean everyone can pull them off, in fact, very few writers can pull off an info dump with some semblance of style. Best for amateur writers to just avoid it until better experienced in writing.
Completely agree. Let some things be left unexplained, let the reader use his/her imagination to fill in the gaps. Does Phillip Pullman explain what Dust is? Does it make his novels any less enjoyable?
It's the mysteries, the unanswered questions, that keeps a reader reading. Don't kill that by explaining everything from the outset. Explanations are deadly boring to begin with. But you also take away the reader's chance to be an explorer, discovering the hidden truth and history from the hints and clues scattered throughout the book.
While I'd have to agree that avoiding unnecessary info. dumps is a good course of action, sometimes it just feels necessary—and fits. I just finished reading Nine Princes of Amber and The Guns of Avalon, both of which had a couple of multiple-page "info. dumps," but they fit well, and satisfied exactly what I felt I needed to know. Explaining everything seems like it can always be avoided, but to say info. dumps are always bad isn't a good rule to follow (just mostly ).
Ghosts in Latin, Excellent series by Zelazny! One of the things about the information is that the main character, Corwin, picks up bits and pieces and then adds through conjecture. That then is matched to what others explain to him as he struggles to find his way without his memory (until he walks the pattern, of course). Avoiding a chapter of infodump (such as in chapter 2) would be something to avoid if at all possible, but if it cannot be, check out some of the books mentioned in this thread, including the Amber series by Zelazny. One thing to remember is that unless things are discussed in dialogue in such a way as to anchor it in the reader's mind, much of what is 'discussed in dialogue' will be forgotten when it is important. That is why action and memorable events in the plot coupled with revealing things about the world are important when writing. You, the author may get and understand all the bits and nuances, but the reader won't--and very well could get bored. A final thing to remember is that unless you're self-publishing, your first readers are going to be agents and editors. Most agents you have to query, and then if they like what you have to say, they ask for a partial (usually the first three chapters and a synopsis). If a publisher accepts unsolicited manuscripts, often it is only the first 3 chapters + a synopsis, or something along those lines. With that in mind, how well will an entire second chapter infodump go over with them? Even if they have the full novel, with all of the other submissions in their mound of slush, I suspect they'll be more likely to pass than press on. I posted this elsewhere today on the forum, but I think it works here too explain the point with a picture: Tor's Slush Pile Also recall, authors like Zelazny had already established themselves before writing the said Amber novels with the long strings of information. Established writers have an audience already and usually they are cut a bit more slack because the reader (and technically the agent/editors) know there's going to be a big pay off in the overall quality of the story. Just a few thoughts. Good luck. Terry
I don't have a lot of paragraphs after paragraphs of dialogue. The only time I did put them in was near the end because my characters are not who they seem to be so they have to explain the truth about themselves. I put little but of action into it, but I think this is not such a big deal to a hypothetical reader who is enjoying the read. If he/she has come that far, the four paragraphs broken down slightly and interrupted every now and then aren't that bad, in my opinion. I think the paragraphs of dialogue are dangerous at the beginning of the novel where you should be grabbing the readers' attention.
Besides the advice already given, just remember to transport them to the new world at about the 25% mark, so if it were a 100,000 word novel, they would enter the new world at around 25,000.
^ Any reason? Or were you being ironic and the internet is just hiding it? Cuz that seems like the kind of arbitrary instruction you would see in a recipe book, as opposed to a useful general guideline...
No, because it works. You need time to develop the characters and show their regular lives before transporting them to a new world. If you are transporting your characters to a new world in chapter two, I would hope chapter one is long enough to set up the daily lives of the MC(s). So, yes, it is a helpful guideline. There is a reason most every good story has a change occure at around the 25 percent mark.
First of all, consider character personalities, the situation and how pressing each bit of information is. Consider: In real life, if someone was telling me all of this stuff, I would interrupt every couple of sentences to insert a question or my two cents. This could be potentially comedic to the reader, as the one explaining everything would grow frustrated with my shot-gun blast of questions. If he is explaining why the character appeared there, then that could be interesting. Describing the history of the planet-- why? Also, is this person a scholar? Does he KNOW the history of the planet? If a dimensional traveler appeared, I certainly wouldn't tell him the history of America unless he asked, and even then, I would have little to say since I didn't study much history. So while everything that everyone is saying is all well and good, it is all conjecture and assumptions based upon the modicum of information you provided. Perhaps if you go into more detail. . . .
I like dialogue. I don't like description. I don't like action. Of course, I have to use them in order to write coherent stories. But they're not what interests me. They are not why I write. They are basically secondary concerns. But what I'm saying is that when I write a short-story, I come up with a plot, and then I write the dialogue and introspection first and then I fill in all the action and description after. Is this a normal practice among writers, or am I out to lunch?
If it works for you, perfect. I tend to follow the flow of the narrative, and insert dialogue when it is called for. To me, dialogue is a way to show characterization instead of telling it. If I can show a character's feelings, or ambivalence, or hidden agenda, etc, through dialogue, it's well-placed. I don't like to use dialogue as a substitute for exposition, unless it can also serve to show something about the characters. But dialogue also takes me longer to pound into shape than narrative, because I'm usually working harder on subtext than text.
as cog says, if it works for you, then of course it's ok... but i've never come across any successful authors who write in such a patchwork fashion... and i can't imagine doing so myself...
I do it once in a great while if a scene is being stubborn, but not as a general practice. Writing the dialogue essentially functions, for me, as a sort of outline. Often, the dialogue I wrote separately doesn't even make it into the finished scene. But, as Cognito and mammamaia said, if it works for you, go to it.
As everyone else has said, every method has it's place in a complete story... It would be easy to get into a "telling" way of writing using dialogue for almost the entire story. I can't say I would be enthralled to read this: "Bob is running a marathon," Dianne said, "He's in first place right now. Another runner is right on his tail. Bob is giving it all he's got. Bob wins!" I suppose if you were writing a dialogue based story you wouldn't use an action based plot though...
I'm the exact opposite. I put in dialogue at the very end. But if you are comfortable with writing dialogue first, then go ahead and do it, regardless of what other writers do. Chances are that if you are uncomfortable writing a certain way, then your writing is going to suffer.
I tend to be heavy on the dialog too. I've often thought I should just write screenplays, but that field is even harder to break into than the novel writing business. I hate exposition, but often it is a necessary evil, so long as it is showing and not doing too much telling. I do like my action though. I tend to write in a linear fashion, from start to finish. I write it narrative and dialog as I go along within each scene. Since I tend to write more in the first person pov, sometimes dialog is the only way for the story telling character to find out information. This has to be done carefully though, no, "Well you know..." crap. It has to come out naturally with the correct emotions for that scene. And since the MC doesn't know everything in a fp pov narration, the reader has to find out along with the MC what the heck is going on, through interaction with other characters and situations. That's the way uh-huh,uh-huh...I like it...uh-huh, uh-huh. lol The order in which you write things is totally up to you. The only thing I see that could pose a problem, would be in writing all the dialog first, you may get confused when adding in your narrative and action. It's always best to follow the KISS rule...the easier you make it for yourself in writing it, the easier it is for the reader to follow.
This can be enlightening as an educational exercise, but I don't recommend it for a serious piece of writing. The result is almost guaranteed to be horrible.
Being different just for the sake of being different is foolish. Instead of decrying "the box", you need to understand that it exists as a database of the experiences of thousands of writers. If you're going to be a rebel, know what you are rebelling against and why. Otherwise, you're just like the Doctor Pepper jingle: "I'm part of an original crowd." As George Santayana said, ""Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it."
You're probably not out to lunch, but if dialogue is your forte and the only aspect you really enjoy, why don't you write screenplays (or stage plays) instead? There, the only thing about description and action you have to focus on is how to communicate these things clearly to the directors and others involved in the production, and that's not typically done with fictional prose. Folks I've talked to who read screenplay (and stage play) manuscripts tell me that finding someone who understands how characters actually speak to each other in scintillating dialogue is not easy. Of course, you'll need to work on that introspection thing (but that's true even for short stories).
But it has been done. And it has to be one of the hardest ways to master writing. It's a lot easier to use narrative description, but to rely purely on dialogue to show and tell...? Hard -- very hard.
Also pointless -- very pointless. Would a builder throw away his hammer? Would a chef give up the grill? No one would voluntarily give up something they know they could use to improve their work, regardless of what that work is, especially when doing so is guaranteed to result in a poorer final quality. If you really want to write without narrative exposition and description, write for stage or screen.
Well, when I first tried my hand at creative writing, I actually did try writing screenplays (or at least partial ones) and I enjoyed it. But I also like writing things that people will read, and nobody except a movie exec is going to read a screenplay. Plus, I'm not in it for the money, it's just a hobby. Furthermore, I like to write fanfic. So screenplays aren't really an option there.
