Info dumping?

Discussion in 'Plot Development' started by Youniquee, Dec 10, 2010.

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  1. Show

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    ^^^^Moderation is what I like. :D
     
  2. Taylee91

    Taylee91 Carpe Diem Contributor

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    I know now how hard it is to be a writer. It's a balancing act. You, being the author, not only have to write something a reader would want to read, but you also have to execute it in a way that would keep their attention spans focused. Writing isn't easy at all. What was I thinking. . .
     
  3. VM80

    VM80 Contributor Contributor

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    You can't please all of the people all of the time.

    There's theory but then there's also personal style. Some writers are descriptive, some less so. What matters is that there is flow and rhythm to the writing.
     
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    Tell me about it. xD Sometimes I also think it's too easy to get into a "painting by the numbers" way of storytelling, all or nothing. No info or descriptive details at all or pages and pages describing a coffee table. It's like you're expected to be one thing or another thing, or both at the same time. :rolleyes: It's almost as if writing sometimes gets lost in the shuffle.
     
  5. Taylee91

    Taylee91 Carpe Diem Contributor

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    ^Exactly. LOL. I feel the same way! The things to focus on stagger me. And being so focused on those elements, I forget that writing a story should be more enjoyable. (I was going to say fun - but fun means it's enjoyable every moment. In volleyball, for instance, you have to work real hard at making those points and surving well. So it's enjoyable in the whole course of the game - but not fun every second. To me, writing is the same. I have to work real hard to keep things always moving. But I also need to remember this is my story too and that if I don't at least enjoy myself at times, I'll probably just throw the towel in).
     
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    ^^^^Yup, nice points. It's good to make a story presentable but if the soul gets squashed in making positively sure you don't got anything resembling an info dump in there(which to some people could be as little as a fleeting mention that Bobby would rather be at the arcade than waiting in a doctor's office), what's the point anyway?
     
  7. goldhawk

    goldhawk New Member

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    If you want to info dump, put some conflict in it. David Weber does his in his writing and IMHO, it's the best way to info dump. An info dump that's just description gets boring really fast. But add a little tension and readers will pay attention. They may even be unaware of the info dumps.
     
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    ^^^^Who WANTS info dumps? It's about just writing and making it interesting. As long as some people like it(cause it is impossible to make everyone like it), who cares what label you slap on it?
     
  9. Elgaisma

    Elgaisma Contributor Contributor

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    Personally I would rather have an info dump that I need to enrich the story than struggle understanding what is going on.

    Robert Neill is my hero when it comes to managing description throughout the book. JK Rowlling is also exceptional at it - Enid Blyton as well. Agatha Christie. Why all of them work so well on screen (well don't know about Robert Neill) visually.
     
  10. popsicledeath

    popsicledeath Banned

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    Not to step on your funny, glib response. But I think you have a point, and my own writing mentor would respond by saying: be more clever.

    There are plenty of writers that tell readers a ton, so much so it could be seen as too much if analyzed, and others that are painfully minimal. The thing they share in their success is they're always clever.
     
  11. popsicledeath

    popsicledeath Banned

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    So we should just scrabble together some fiction in a clumsy, unconscious way because somebody, somewhere, might like it? :p

    I'd rather be more conscious of what I'm doing. Part of that consciousness has led me to believe that 99% of the time anything even close to resembling an info-dump could be written in a more clever, engaging and meaningful way.

    Sure, poorly written books (I know, I know, I can't say that because it's just all sooooo subjective) make best seller status all the time. I'd rather take my chances with everything I can control, though, like the craft of writing. And in my study of the craft, I've very rarely come across info-dump that was the best possible writing-option for that moment.

    Readers don't WANT info-dump, they simply forgive it if you're doing other things well enough. But why take the risk in hoping for forgiveness?

    And the labels usually come as writers struggle to define and understand what isn't interesting.... so trying to reverse engineer most negative writing labels is asking for a widget to get sprung.

    I agree, we should all just write gooder, but anything like this that has a label often means it's a red-flag that what you're writing isn't yet gooder enough.
     
  12. HorusEye

    HorusEye Contributor Contributor

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    "Gooder enougher", I believings.
     
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    See? That's where the extremes come in. It's either military rigidity or liberal do whatever you want clumsiness with no structure whatsoever. It's the very proof of my point about it being all or nothing. Thanks. :p (Although plenty of fiction has been written as you caricatured and become very famous.)

    Clever and engaging are subjective terms. What one person considers clever and engaging, another considers trash. I've seen lots of stuff held up as good writing that seems to have about as much merit as a clod of dirt. Info dump is also, IMO, a term in the same boat as jump the shark.

    I've read stuff about what readers do and do not want and aside from an engaging story, I've always found such claims to be presumptuous at best. I'm a reader and I didn't want half the crap these how-to's said I did. We could get into hypothetical discussion all day about what readers do and do not want and find examples if you ask around.

    I disagree that it's labeled because it's not good enough. People today label everything. They nitpick everything. It isn't humanly possible to write something somebody won't slap a negative label on. Show me anything anybody's written and I can slap some negative labels on it and probably mean every one of them. The modern world is looking for a reason to complain and they will find it no matter how well you think you've covered your butt.

    All in all, common sense needs to be used when writing. This is true with info "dumping" as well. I think both extremes will lead to stories I don't care to read. Speaking as a reader, I don't want to read a ten-page profile of some guy's hair, but I also don't want to sense that the writer walked around on pins and needles to avoid dumping even a scrap of info at any given point. If you give me too much, I drown, but if you don't give me enough, I starve.
     
  14. goldhawk

    goldhawk New Member

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    One editor of the New York Times said that 9 out of 10 letters to the editor are nothing but complaints; the other 10% having a compliment to go with their complaints. If you do anything in public, someone will complain. Even if they have nothing to do with it, they will still complain. It's the nature of the beast. And people have been complaining since language was invented, so it's nothing new. The only thing you can do is grow a tough skin or live as a hermit. :)
     
  15. popsicledeath

    popsicledeath Banned

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    When one cites two extremes, they usually imply everything in between as well, not that those two extremes exist independently of any connection.

    What people say they want is often very different from what they actually want. People often don't even realize the effects working behind the scenes on what they want or need. If it were all this clear, advertising wouldn't exist the way it does. Car ads would never have beautiful women, and burger ads would never be about empowerment. Most importantly, in my opinion, is that people often self-report wanting things that in practice won't even be effective in even securing what they want.

    My job is to write what I've found to be effective, not what people claim to want or like.

    And if you don't think there are tangible, quantifiable means and methods we can use to guide creating something effective, then I suppose we'll just have to agree to write differently. Hopefully there are enough people to like us all.

    Maybe everything ever is subjective anyway, and there's simply nothing we can do as writers to sway an audience. Maybe we should all just write as quickly and recklessly as we can and just hope people like it.

    Want to talk about hypothetical discussions? Too often, too many writers avoid talking about anything beyond the hypothetical and surface of writing fiction. We talk about theories, toss around adages, dispel all arguments on the basis that it's all just so darned subjective.

    But in reality, some of the best writers in this country--I've had the pleasure to meet a few--are talking about tangible, quantifiable things. They're talking about what effect info-dump has, why it's bad, how to avoid it. They're talking about literary cliches and figures of speech that, whether readers may claim to like them or not, make a manuscript more vague and less powerful. They're talking through every stroke of the keyboard, knowing that whether someone will like their story is highly subjective, but how effective a story can be is often far from it.

    Or maybe you're right. It's all just so subjective and unpredictable we should probably all stop wasting our times discussing craft and attempting to unravel the mystery of what makes engaging, effective fiction.

    I know, engaging and effective are also words that are so darn subjective... our entire language is. We should probably stop communicating all together. :X
     
  16. popsicledeath

    popsicledeath Banned

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    Or try to not give as much merit to the complaints.

    People complain Stephanie Meyer is a bad writer. If she were a better writer, there would still be complaints, but would they have as much merit?

    Maybe that doesn't matter to anyone else. I know people will always complain. But I also know the only thing I can really control is how much merit those complaints actually have.
     
  17. Show

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    ^^^^Evaluating the merit of complaints is good for self esteem at least.

    Sounds like a philosphy book's beginnings. But okay, people don't know what they want. But I'd question whether many of these people who claim to do either.

    I am sure what you write is effective to some people, just like it would do absolutely nothing for other people. Some people would kill for it, and others would use it as fire fuel. :p

    Again, implying nonexistent extremes and then attributing them to me as if I somehow suggested one of them. :rolleyes: Nobody is saying have no craft at all. That's the whole point exactly, to not let craft get lost in the process of rigidity.

    The stopping of communication is exactly what happens with rigidity.
     
  18. Islander

    Islander Contributor Contributor

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    I'm certain some ways of writing are more effective than others, at least for most readers. That's why we improve when we practice and learn about writing. I certainly didn't write as well ten years ago.

    And there are things in writing which are very subjective too, of course.
     
  19. FrankABlissett

    FrankABlissett Active Member

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    This weekend I remembered an old Waddie Mitchell poem. He's describing old-west preaching, but the moral holds true for info-dumping.

    Here's a link to "The Whole Load" - I'll summarize/quote below.
    http://david-andersen.com/in/The%20Whole%20Load.htm

    A town builds a church and hires a young preacher. On his first Sunday, the congregation consists of just one person - an old cowboy.

    The preacher declared “Guess we could try again next week.”

    The cowboy replied "Now if I was t’haul out a whole load of hay, / An’ only one cow showed, she’d get feed that day".

    Inspired, the preacher lectures all morning - he's really in the groove ... till he notices the cowboy sleeping in the pew.

    -Frank
     
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