I have just written a five-page infodump.
What’s worse, it’s an, “As you know, Bob,” type dump, where the protagonist lays out information he knows to other characters, one of whom knows it as well as he does, the other of whom is a ten-year-old child. The information is way too technical for a kid of that age, by the way, but he’s asking super-intelligent questions.
Yes, well.
It was fun to write, and it clarified a lot of issues I had with a particular process, and the information will end up in the final story. You won’t see it as that massive infodump, however. Over the next few drafts I’m going to take little pieces of information from it, and ease them a paragraph at a time into the story so that the reader knows all those facts—ideally before they become important to the story.
Outside of these minor technical issues, the writing is going well. 😊
4 replies on “The horror: an infodump”
I have never been bothered by infodumps as long as the speaker is entertaining, and looking at the “we’re drowning in information” sign I realize that this is because/why I trained as a reference librarian. 🙂 Information winnowing: my skill.
I wish.
I rather like ten year olds who ask super-intelligent questions! Happy writing, Karen.
I think I need to be around more children. Now I’ve got a seven-year-old who’s acting like a kindergartner. 🙂