Info-dumping: the bane of writers everywhere. In a post on Writer Unboxed, Kelsey Allagood suggests how you can identify it and fix it. “When authors infodump, they interrupt the flow of their story to drop a chunk of exposition onto readers’ laps,” Allagood explains. “Regardless of the reason, the interruption takes the reader out of the story, breaking the illusion of the fictional reality.”
Instead, writers should strive to master “incluing”: the process of scattering information seamlessly throughout the text (hat tip to Jo Walton). “The author who is adept at incluing provides just enough information to situate the reader in the story without interrupting the flow of the narrative,” Allagood writers.
But how do you know the difference? It’s not always obvious. Sometimes, the effort to avoid info-dumping creates other problems that also push the reader out of the story. Allagood identifies three of them:
- Uber-minimalism. “Uber-minimalists provide zero information or context clues to help situate the reader,” Allagood explains. Does your SF hero use tools with exotic names, but without explaining what these mean to the reader? You’ve gone uber-minimal.
- The Mirror Glance. This is exactly what it sounds like – the painful scene where a character looks in the mirror and describes what they see. Yawn.
- The Side Quest. To avoid info-dumping, writers will send their characters down a side path where they encounter information organically. They problem is that the side path has little or nothing to do with the plot. “It’s fair to say that if you have to invent a side plot to provide important information, that information may not actually be as important as you think it is,” Allagood says. If the information must be presented, try to include it in a sentence or two.
Avoiding those pitfalls still leaves you with the problem of identifying and eliminating info-dumping in the first place. You should strive to recognize when your worldbuilding details are both necessary and relevant, but if that were easy, we wouldn’t be here discussing this topic. It gets easier with practice, but as you edit your work, look for details that don’t directly affect your story. While it’s tempting to include every detail you’ve created, story should always come before worldbuilding. If the detail doesn’t influence the plot or a character’s development, leave it out.
Allagood notes that including and deleting details is hard when you write in deep or close POV. “Deep POV is harder to accomplish when readers and characters do not share the same worlds, frames of reference, or contexts,” she notes. On the one hand, your character is not likely to think about the definitions of objects or social practices in her day to day world. On the other, your reader may be lost without this information. In such cases, practice writing short explanations in the text. Longer expository sequences can be set later in your story, when the information is most relevant and after you’ve drawn the reader in.
