Infodump outrage

[pjthompson]

In each novel I always seem to reach a place, generally somewhere in the middle, but not always, where I commit an egregious infodump outrage—pages and pages of IN-FOR-MATION. Sometimes, I'll admit, I commit more than one of these. It doesn't do any good for me to try editing it down in the first draft because if I try to limit or edit-as-I-go it stalls the novel. I just have to release that "breath I didn't know I was holding" and get on with it. Let it have its way and worry about fixing it after the first draft is done.

I'm an organic writer and used to writing on the fly, but even so I do a great deal of worldbuilding before I commit to a novel. Mostly the big stuff, but also quite a bit of minutiae. Since I find it impossible to work from an outline, this is my hedge against jumping off the cliff and not being fast enough to "build my wings on the way down." In the day to day of writing, though, "stuff" is going to come up that I haven't sufficiently thought through. It took me awhile to figure out that these infodumps were how my psyche chose to work through things.

My first drafts are always about me telling the story to myself. I am writing with an audience in mind and generally try to do a good, clean job, but ultimately, that first draft is mine—which is one of the reasons outlines don't work. If I've already told myself the story, I feel no drive to tell it again. I need to get caught up in the momentum of finding out and that's part of what propels me forward through the months of completing the draft. I know what happens in the end, but there are all these things in the middle that are surprises. These mysterious pathways remain obscure until I put one foot in front of the other heading for that far off ending, peaking like the pinnacle of a Mayan temple over the top of the rainforest.

So I have to "tell" these pathways to myself, often in painful and unnecessary detail, in order to internalize them like all the other stuff. I no longer sweat the infodumps. If they remain infodumps in the second draft, then it's time to sweat. Time to get out the machete and hack my way through the creeping lianas and strangler figs to that temple in the sky, waiting for me to discover it and liberate it from its jungle covering.

Comments

[sollersuk.livejournal.com]

In what I'm writing, info-dumps are a serious hazard. What I've taken to doing after getting the story down (first draft) is writing out detailed notes so that I've got it all clear in my head what is going on, and then it's a lot easier to work it in subtlely - and I also have a better idea of what really does need to go in, as opposed to what I need to know.

But I still haven't worked out how to give the reader a clear idea of what a Roman abacus looks and works like, especially since it's first person, and an abacus is as ordinary and taken-for-granted thing for her as a telephone is for me.

[pjthompson]

You should probably ask yourself the same question there: what does the reader absolutely have to know? In most cases, just saying abacus will be sufficient. If it's vitally important for the plot or character development that the reader know exactly how a Roman abacus looks, then you go into a digression. If not, don't. Most people who are reading historical fiction will get the concept of "abacus" just fine.

[kmkibble75.livejournal.com]

I feel your pain. I'm noticing a lot of I-dumps in Buck, too, but I think the way you describe them, they're a good thing. Yes, they might have to be removed in future drafts, but if they solidify the story, how can that be a bad thing?

[pjthompson]

Exactly. I think for some of us it's just the psyche's way of getting a feel for the place.