Infodump Control

Exposition is pretty much always required in some form, but too much is a real pain, especially in chunks of dialog. Too little can be confusing. Suggestions for how to handle exposition well, please?

When you do the exposition, you can liken it to a sort of 'telepathy' — in which you transmit ideas, information and the story without saying a single word. And like 'telepathy', it's often possible to overdo the infodumping, and overload/bore the reader with less interesting things.

There's one thing to keep in mind — clarity. Clarity of thought. Make sure you can communicate yourself well so the reader can understand; even better if you provoke the reader to form her own picture. Filling in the gaps: Imagine there's a table, with a rabbit in a cage, and a number 8 painted on the rabbit's back with blue ink. If you can write vivid, it's like the reader's right there in your imaginary realm, pouring her imagination out, and in your enthrall you can take the reader for a wild ride. Find words which evoke emotions. Don't overdo this though; it gets boring when we read how that leaf is brown for half-a-page. But offering a setting with details, or a few extraneous movements makes all the difference.

And you keep it moving. Make sure it keeps on going — I think you know what it means. Readers find it more interesting when there is action; whether there's a robbery, or a favela raid, or a heart-to-heart.

I've run across this problem myself, having had to explain nanomachines quickly and efficiently. My method for dealing with it was having a character muse about the subject, giving a few general hints that ground the reader, and then having details and plot occurrences flesh it out when needed. this method will give quick grounding to the reader but will be more protracted and have less detail introduced in one sitting.

Show them in action. Sometimes, using the gist can work.

Here is an idea, why not have a character who need said exposition?

Let's say you want to give an exposition on how magic works and where it comes from. Who would need said knowledge? A student of a mage of course.

^ Also a very viable method that I utilized exactly as stated. However, be aware that certain esoteric details would seem forced if inserted like this, such as things that the person didn't ask for (unless your character is the type to babble on about their field of expertise.)

Here's an exercise I've tried and found very effective.

Take a part of your story; a character, a scene, whatever. Write it out in elaborate, excruciating detail...go nuts and describe everything. Put it all in there. Now, do your best to sum up that same scene in one sentence.

Then, show the one sentence to someone who's interested in helping you with your writing and ask them to describe the room they picture when they read said sentence. The more they describe the room you pictured, the better you've gotten.

Now, how is this relevant? Well, writing it all down makes you codify your thoughts; summing it all up in a single sentence makes you discard the fluff and focus on the really important details. More than that, you learn to use inference and assumption (which, let's face it, is the fuel tropes run on) to your own ends. You know which details will lead to other details, and which are just plain extraneous.

It worked for me. It might work for you.

I do this. sure, the conversations run to ten pages and the expos run to a chapter, but at least you've got a starting point to distill from

You can always Take a Third Option, too: don't explain why stuff works in your story, only how it works, and put the detailed explanation into the Manual. The reason why Info Dumps are disliked is that unless the minute details are relevant to the plot-driving conflict, they only get in the way of it. On the other hand, a minority of fans do want to know those details so you should give them a treat... but outside of the main text.

I tend to like Watsons, provided they're done tactfully. They need to be a relevant/important character in their own right, and shouldn't come off as simply stupid and inserted just for that reason. They shouldn't be just The Watson, but a character who can fill the role. I find Mr. Exposition to be annoying, but the easy solution to having someone answer a question that no one asked, is to have someone actually ask the question.

Writing it out and distilling it down sounds like good advice too. Really think about what the reader needs to know. As always, Show, don't tell. And don't be in a hurry, consider what the reader needs to know right now, and pace yourself. Try to get out the basics now, then parse out more information as it becomes relevant. Weave it into the narrative. Plots speed up and slow down, but try to avoid bringing it to a screeching halt in order to give exposition.

And don't be afraid to leave a little mystery to it. I know how tempting it can be to try to give out lots of detail about everything, especially if you've done some serious world building and are just dying to share. But try to keep the stuff that's unimportant to your story small. A reference here, an off-hand comment there, but don't go off on a tangent. The little passing details can make your world seem more alive, but not elaborating won't confuse the reader, so long as it's not necessary to understand the rest of the plot and/or characters. It's better to leave your reader curious, than inundated.

It might be good practice to do some In Medias Res writing. One generally doesn't do an infodump when you start in the middle. Just sort of take the reader with you, don't worry too much about what they know, and let them piece it together as the details trickle in.

You could also do sort of the opposite of the "write it all out, then distill it down" method. Start out pretending the reader already knows about your setting and let your characters and/or narrator just go along with it, with necessary details cropping up as you go. Then go back and comb over it to figure out what's confusing, and add in the necessary explanations.

edited 29th Dec '10 12:46:23 PM by Stranger