Hi everyone. First of all, sorry about the lack of post last week. I was scheduled for surgery on Monday morning and I planned to apologize when I came back, but my surgery has been rescheduled for May 29th. So it looks like I have more I need to do before then. If you aren’t familiar with my struggle, click here to read more: https://jenniferhaskin.com/2020/03/16/the-opioid-epidemic/ (the pictures maybe graphic to some)

Moving on…

This week, for the Commaful video teaching, I’m going to talk about breaking up “info dumps.” First, what is an info dump?

It’s when a piece of narrative is filled with information that describes the character or world, or plot, in a big chunk of text that doesn’t include “current” character speech or action. *See also, flashbacks.

For a first example, I see a lot of writers give scene information in dumps.

As a new writer, it always confused me when an editor would say about my own books, “Break up this info dump…we don’t need all this info,” then they would go on to say, “What does this (other thing) look like? Show us more.”

I’d think, How am I supposed to show you MORE when you already don’t like the bit I have?

It can be confusing, to be sure, and the difference can be very subtle. But what the editor wants are bite-sized bits of the world, snuck in with cunning intention, woven into the story as “asides.” When the boy crosses to the attic window, don’t miss this opportunity for world-building. As he walks, do his feet leave prints on the dusty floor? Or does he cross an oriental rug? Are there once-shiny wood planks on the floor, now dull with age? That little bit of a sentence can tell us the state of the whole room without needing to give a lot of superfluous information.

I talk about this a lot, but give us everything the character notices, AS they notice it, and nothing they don’t.

We don’t need to know every detail of the room, but as in that last sentence with the dusty floor, you can have the character take one or two action(s) and give us a whole lot of information.

Imagine your character is sitting in a dilapidated chair in the small library, its stuffing bursting from a hole in the back cushion, pushed out by the end of a spring. The character leans back and the spring digs into their shoulder. “Ouch!” The character reacts by leaning forward and propping their elbows on their knees, frowning in thought, and they shiver from the breeze coming in the open window. The character reaches over to close the old window–covered in chipped white paint–but it is stuck. They slide their fingertips over the cold, fogged glass, remembering last fall when Mother was still alive.

How many things did we learn from that paragraph of two actions (sitting back and getting poked, trying to close the window)? In such a paragraph, we would normally get the character’s name and/or gender [1], but beside that, we know they are in an older house [2], and the fact that it has a library means its probably a bigger house [3]. But it is in disrepair as the chair is falling apart and the window is stuck [4]. The character isn’t feeling happy as they are thinking [5] and that somehow lends itself to their recollection of their mother’s last year [6]. Knowing that the glass is cold, but the room is warm and fogging the glass–and the breeze is chilly–lends the season to fall [7], especially as the character reminisces about “last fall.” We got a lot more information than we even realized. Because it was sewn into the story seamlessly. We know their mother died a year ago and that it still affects them [8].

And the best part is that it raises subconscious questions in the reader’s mind, such as: are they in their mother’s old house? If it’s a big house, did they get an inheritance? Since it’s in disrepair, was there more debt than money left over? Since they are still in the broken down old house, does that mean they need to live there? Why are they sad? DO they live there? What about the rest of the family? Why are we here and in this room? Has it been a year–or only six months? How did the lady die? What has happened in the last year or however long since Mother died?

World-building info dumps. Let’s try something I see a lot. (I’m making this up as I go, so give me some grace.) What if Jill shows up to Susan’s old, refurbished farmhouse with a neighborhood welcome gift and they have some coffee? This is what I often see:

Although we got a large number of description dumps, we still don’t know much about the story or how any of this relates to it. All we know is the description of Susan’s floorplan [1], which Jill can’t know, and that Jill is now sitting at Susan’s kitchen table looking at the dog in the backyard [2]. But we don’t feel anything.

There is no emotion tied to any of these descriptions and the story has no “atmosphere” (or classifying genre) tied to the situation. So from here, it will depend on what kind of story you are telling as to how you might break this section up. Don’t forget, you can use action and dialogue to share the world, as well. Let’s rewrite the previous entry as a Women’s Fiction, first:

Your tone will determine what details you want to include or stress in the building of your fictional world. Commaful has another video about world-building. But the gist of it is, anything and everything you include in your story, every detail, is carefully chosen to be there, and somehow moves the story forward. It includes the main POV character’s five senses, and sometimes a sixth. It is how that character experiences their world.

Writing a great book means incorporating several skills that are all related. Breaking up the world keeps the pace flowing, it keeps the scene active. It eliminates info dumps.

Let us experience the world as the character does, at the same time the character does. Tie emotions to those descriptions. Don’t give us details that the character can’t know.

Speaking of which, who noticed in the first example, that I gave several bits of information before the character could possibly know them? Kudos to you if you did.

In the following paragraph, tell me what’s wrong:

The house was a two-story with the formal living room, roomy kitchen and comfortable family room on the main floor, and the bedrooms upstairs. Hard-wood flooring throughout the house was shiny and freshly waxed, but covered in area rugs. Jill wondered if Susan had kids.

We don’t know if Jill’s ever been inside this house, but we’ll assume she hasn’t, and she shouldn’t know the layout before she enters. But, even at that, if the houses are all the same and she does know the general layout, she doesn’t know the family room is “comfortable.” It says the hard-wood flooring “throughout the house was freshly waxed, and covered in rugs.” She can’t know that. She’s still standing on the porch. Here’s another one:

Susan invited Jill into the foyer and took the gifts, then gestured down the hall to a kitchen decorated in sunny yellow flowers in cobalt blue vases.

If they are standing in the foyer and Susan is just now gesturing down the hall, Jill might have an idea that’s where the kitchen is, but she doesn’t know how it’s decorated yet. She won’t know that till she gets to the kitchen. In this first case, we transition directly to the kitchen, so it works, and isn’t a big deal, but if they’d gone anywhere else, that description wouldn’t work. Just beware that the story may be in past tense, but we still experience it as the POV character–don’t give us details before the experience or tell us things the character can’t know or doesn’t know YET.

And if an editor, or a beta reader says, “Show me more of this.” Don’t automatically add a paragraph or three of physical description. Just tuck in bits here and there that give us the world in the way you want the reader to experience it.

Maybe all the sounds your character hears are benign in nature, but your character is paranoid or suspicious, making everything they hear suspect. If that’s the case, give it to us every spooky detail at a time. Later, when we find out it wasn’t true, the audience will be thrown for a loop if you have led their attention another way. And that is through the tone of your world-building.

The video I’m making won’t have time for all of this, so you get bonus content here. Lol.

Info dumps are often found in character descriptions. For example:

She had hair the color of buttercups, and eyes lined with dark lashes that made them appear infinitely bluer than possible. Her stature diminutive, tiny hands perched on thin hips clad in an emerald green velvet skirt, topped by a shimmering green corset–tiny green slippers on her feet.

That is an info dump. The best way I know how to tell you to fix it is to attach actions and dialogue to everything you want to describe. Have the things your character comes into contact with be deliberate. Let me show you what I mean.

The same information told us so much more about the story in the second example. It gave us their attitudes, and feelings, and rank and presence. We know the speaker is nervous to speak to her [1], and she doesn’t care [2]. She is impatient and/or has somewhere else to be [3]. Granted, it did take us longer to write that description with more words. That is also why it’s so important to only include the details that move the story forward, and then give us everything we can know about them. Make sense?

*Flashbacks are often seen in infodump form. Now this is going to vary. There is a difference between having a memory and filling in backstory to assure the current situation makes sense.

If what you are giving us is back story–memories of things that have happened before the story began–then definitely give it to us in bits and pieces. Have the character remember as much of it in their own words as possible. Give them someone they need to explain to, or have them explain the relevant bits and pieces to a stranger, if necessary. Maybe they are trying to make sense of a situation that confused them, and they are talking out bits of information to themselves? There are several ways you can do this, but as with the info dumps above, give us pieces at a time.

When you are going along with your day and something makes you think of a memory, does the whole memory play, or just the relevant part? Most of what we remember is understood backstory.

Give your character a specific memory and have them explain the understood backstory in bits and pieces. This keeps the pace going.

For example:

The important part of that memory was what he said, and their last kiss. The catalyst to the memory were the sunglasses. Give your character a reason to remember the situation you want, and give us the little details that tell us just what you want to say.

If, however, you want the character to have a whole memory, that’s fine too. You don’t need to speak in a different tense (although most italicized thoughts are in present tense, try it both ways), you don’t need to format it any other way, just make sure you italicize the sections that are from the past, and give us the memory inside the story. Again, the character needs to have a reason for thinking about what they are thinking, and there should be a point to having the memory.

To conclude, breaking up info dumps is pretty easy to do, but it takes time if you are having to “fix” things afterward, and spreading the information out. Take out pieces that aren’t important and carefully choose your descriptions based on the genre and the atmosphere you want the reader to “feel.” Leave in details that move the story forward, but attach dialogue, action, and emotion to them. AND if you are writing a first draft, add little bits of the world as you are are going, giving details here and there that show your character and their world, then you’ll be on the right track.

I’ll probably be gone for the next few weeks, but I appreciate your thoughts and prayers on Friday the 29th! Until next time! Keep writing!