How to deal with infodumps?

My books are in a futuristic setting. In the first chapter of my first book, the main character tells the story of the city where he lives and how it was created, presented in several paragraphs in nearly two pages. Is this a bad thing in itself?

I'm fine with this kind of infodump - maybe if it's like the main character's introducing his life to a penpal (reader), and we get to see his personality?

edited 4th Feb '12 10:22:32 AM by QQQQQ

Well... We get to see his personality in the next 250 pages and in two other books, too... And he tends to be pretty objective and straight-to-the-point naturally.

I was just wondering whether this would be a reason for people to automatically stop reading my book out of hatred for infodumps.

edited 4th Feb '12 10:24:34 AM by Teraus

Then make it a good introduction to his personality. Sometimes there might not be a better way of acquainting readers with the setting so quickly - just make sure you remember the mise-en-scene after that part.

It depends on how interesting that story is. If it feels like a boring info dump, then cut it out.

Never heard complaints about it, but I tend to be overly critical on myself.

He's talking with his best friend along the chapter, too.

edited 4th Feb '12 10:26:04 AM by Teraus

@OP: Sounds fine. Using a character to tell a story, elaborating on a reason why someone or something is doing something and a couple others are fine ways to Info Dump. So long as the actual descriptions don't suck. They can be contradictory to later stuff but they better not suck. Reasons for sucking include being incomprehensible (unless that's the point), worthless, gratuitous, poorly structured/rambling (as in darting from thing to thing failing to elaborate anything), or placed in a very jarring position (say breaking away from a supermarket scene to talk magical constructs).

Well... He is going to a history class.

The way I usually do it is giving maybe three details at a time in no more than a paragraph, spaced into where it comes up. This spreads stuff out and allows for a more organic conveyance of whatever you're trying to convey. I don't have a problem with reading longer ones, though; it sounds as if yours is fine.

Info dumps are bad.

Explanation is good.

Solution: attempt to work in things as organically as possible, and if you can "hide" things, so to speak, in the mundane setting description. I've found that my favorite way to do it is to have conversations take place, rather than narrative wankery over what is going on and why it's going on.

Can't help you more unless I look at the actual info dump in question...

Also, try to "show" some of the information. Show it by having characters interact.

Also, make sure something is going on in the scene. If the scene can't function as a scene without the exposition, it won't work as a hook.

I replace all infodumps with an appropriate different writing tool. In many cases, flashbacks cover the info just fine.

Personally, I've found hiding infodumps behind dialogue works pretty well. That is, the characters are talking about something, and a strange term comes up, then the narration explains it briefly. Seems to be working well so far. Though I'm with Flyboy: It depends on the exposition. It's literally the first part of the work, right? Drop it in here and everyone can give more detailed advice.

However, flashbacks tend to slow down the pace, especially in prose, so they must be used cautiously.

Also, exposition through dialogue can work, as long as As You Know is avoided. This is why many shows use the Naïve Newcomer.

edited 4th Feb '12 7:47:49 PM by chihuahua0

^ As You Know is best done either humorously or just referring to stuff off-camera so to speak. Don't world build with it, just bring continuity with the audience back up to speed.

I've never really found info-dumps necessary in the first place, honestly.

^ They're incredibly necessary if you set a work in any genre pertaining to Speculative Fiction. (Either fantasy or sci-fi and variations of either or both.)

Why? Mostly because the world has to be built. Unlike with stuff set next Tuesday or today or even twenty minutes from now, you can't make assumptions in that world. (Part of the draw really, go to a place wholly different than reality.) Same deal with historical fiction, there's a lot of Foregone Conclusion at play in such works (unless Alternate History et. al) or otherwise easy to assume stuff on the part of the reader/viewer.

edited 4th Feb '12 7:56:13 PM by MajorTom

Well, there are some things that you just can't expect the audience to figure out by themselves without saying anything. I don't really imagine my readers will know that a certain Spanish king didn't die of disease in the late 1800s in my timeline, thus setting up Spain to bounce back and not suck anymore, and thus explaining why they can actually fight an industrial-scale war when in reality during the equivalent period they were bullshit useless.

The question is simply on how you deliver this information, and streamline it to exactly what your reader needs while keeping it fresh and interesting.

Firstly, info-dumps are not necessary even by your own argument - there are other ways to get that information across. But more to the point, I'm not even convinced that too much exposition of any kind about a given speculative fiction setting is necessary, unless there are specific details that are necessary for the plot.

You could handle getting a large amount of information across by having a scientist or other character who likes history bring up necessary topics. Which is probably an acceptable method, but it still somehow feels copout-y to me.

Also, in general, starting with a series of info-dump tend to not work, at least for me. Personally, not all necessary information is needed at once. One book (Virals) started with tons and tons of exposition, and the pace was so slow, I almost abandoned the book because the author shoved all the information into narrative summary.

I happen to be drafting an article on first-chapter exposition. I might go back and polish it a little bit more.

edited 4th Feb '12 8:11:42 PM by chihuahua0

Such as? There are only so many ways you can hint or imply or make cryptic reference to before you actually need to start elaborating the details.

Some of the best works of speculative fiction ever made relied on Info Dump in this manner. See the Star Wars Opening Crawl for one instance and the Ring's creation/Last Alliance of Men and Elves sequences in the Lord of the Rings movies. Hell Tolkien himself couldn't get away with building everything through cryptic reference or implied stuff, many many times he had to outright elaborate on what was going on. Fortunately most of the time he tied it into the scene that was happening.

Look, I'm not saying you should Info Dump right at the start, but Info Dump itself is a very true case of Tropes Are Tools.

edited 4th Feb '12 8:13:16 PM by MajorTom

Not if the readers don't actually need to know those details... but even if they do, you don't need to dump it on them. Parceling exposition out over time is much more readable them giving it all at once.

Hmm...just for reference...this is a break-down of Chapter One of Virals:

The sci-fi elements don't arrive onto half-way through the book or so.

edited 4th Feb '12 8:15:22 PM by chihuahua0

Might be better to space the info out a bit more. Have small dumps spread out throughout several chapters.

Heh. "Small dumps."