Please help me (Editing...)

[SwiftieDaughterOfAthena13]

I took a break from writing one of my stories and after a few months I came back and realized that there were so many problems with it. I info-dumped for the first few chapters and then tried to force a rivalry between two characters. Does anyone have any advice on how to remove info-dumping but still convey the MC's backstory?

 

[ThinkerX]

You begin with action to get the reader's attention.

Backstory? The rule of thumb here is:
'Everybody has a backstory. Nobody cares.'

For that, you sneak the 'need to know' bits into dialogue or the odd memory - 'coming here reminded her of...'

 

[MoSSurII]

Well firstly, how about you try to slow down the pacing. I don't how many chapters you have written so far, but if it isn't too much, try extending it and 'spreading it over a larger area'. This way, the reader has enough time to comprehend each individual point of information.

Secondly, Take a good, long look at all the information you're trying to convey in the MC's backstory, now identify what's unnecessary or what could be described with less detail, adjust it and voila! It's now less overwhelming, even if a little. Additionally, there's a saying which goes, "never give the reader 4, give them 2 + 2," this means that as a writer, you have to assume that the reader is smart (Even if they may be an absolute buffoon!) and is capable of extrapolating from incomplete data and, as such, take out any extra information which they can just by using their brain a little (See, in the final sentence, everything after "and, as such..." could've been removed and it would still carry the same meaning!).

Going back to the first point, you could also try breaking up the information into smaller bits and throwing it around the story (Just like how I broke the first point in half and placed the second half after the second point, bad example and probably unintentional, but, and example nonetheless) in the form of minor flashbacks or something similar. This also contributes to the idea of 'spreading them over a larger area', thus giving the reader more time to digest everything.

Now for the forced rivalry, for that all I have to say is take it slow, introduce the MC's rival a little bit, maybe why the MC considers them as such, and other relevant information you think would be important to include, here you could even add a bit of MC's backstory to show how or why this rivalry was birthed.

Here's how you could incorporate these points:

• Maybe the MC is on their way to fight their rival in an arena or something and they pass by a bakery, and as they walk by it, they get the scent of a blueberry-mixed-with-strawberry-jam pie which reminds them of their mother's baking- before she was murdered. Then the story continues like normal (Also, noticed I highlighted what kind of pie it is, well that's unnecessary information which you can make do without, so try to avoid such descriptions).
• Later the MC is in the arena, sparring with their rival, when they lock swords and stare into each others faces, then the MC remembers how this rivalry was formed as they stare at their opponents face and so on.

(Pretty lame, but hope they help)

So these are all the points I have to say, don't beat yourself too much about any mistakes, writing is all about writing and re-writing until you got something good, even the greats need to write and re-write for them to achieve the stories which made them the greats they are. So all that matters is you enjoy what you do and stay consistent with it!

 

[A. E. Lowan]

Welcome to Scribes! I'm Lowan and I'm the drafter on a three woman writing team, and together we write Urban Fantasy. No worries, everyone goes back and in horror at their Past Self and how could they just shunt the issue down stream for Future Self to deal with?

Sometimes, I kind of suck,

But you're in luck, because suckage aside I was literally build to be a writer. My mom, another author, saw to that, and looking back I've been writing for about 45 years. I'm turning Forever Forty-nine tomorrow.

The info-dump is a classic, but it's also one that gets swept up in the tastes of the time so sometimes we read an author who totally info-dumps for three chapters, and later a more modern author who uses tight, spare language and gives out details and signposts - fancy writers call this 'foreshadowing,' but I'm just not that kind of lady. First, start by deciding how slow or how fast your pacing's going to be. Once you start writing, all bets are off.

One of our central characters, who is also the first character we get to meet, is a wizard and a trauma surgeon. Now, the trick to avoiding the info-dump is actually fairly easy. Having spent months or years building this world you want to share every little detail. And you can. Tolkien did. I did for one chapter in our first book. So far, though, no one has contacted us about the discrepancy.

Instead, we have readers who swear by and adore our uses of description. And others who've said I can't describe my way out of a wrinkled grocery bag, the thick, tawny paper gone soft from handling.

Okay, now you've got a good idea of the pacing you want to shoot for. You know how to set your scene. You know the characters who'll be onstage. So you're going in with the tools you need to be successful. Time to get rolling.

The way I tend to do descriptions is by dropping only enough information as the reader needs right now. We, as the author, may know the MC's sprawling family ties and allies and political affiliations, but unless the reader needs the information pronto, there is no reason to include it, yet. In other words, I prefer to start small and grow as the plot grows. Think of it as spreading flower seeds. You want a little here, a little there, enough to keep the reader and the story going. If you just dump the seeds in a pile, you generally tend to just be making a mess.

As to how you can trim and use it, I hate to tell you this, but you're in for a full rewrite. And that's okay. Great books aren't written, they're rewritten. I'm doing a rewrite this very second. I screwed up the first third of the book, and now it's back to page one. But! Never delete your files, no matter how bad you may think they are. You never know how much someone else needs your characters and your world, but you do know how to read over the old stuff and maybe squirrel away lines and cool ideas. I've got Word files that are older than our younger writing partner. Just sayin'.

 

[A. E. Lowan]

Just tossing in an example. This is me trying to stuff about thirty shape shifters into a dining room. Note how I'm trying to use the descriptions to also help move the story forward, and then reread it and see what you missed. Read it aloud, too. Best way to pick through a big document with no organization what so ever. Enjoy!

~~~

The ravens arrived, and Jessie saw that their leader, Gaubert, was another to come with offspring in tow. For him it was his twelve-year-old daughter Colette. Jessie smiled and approached. Gaubert always reminded her of a pleasantly Goth-looking David Bowie. “Can I help you find seats?”

Gaubert inclined his head towards her. “Thank you, but I’ll let Colette choose, if I may.”

Colette smiled at her father and then surveyed the table with serious black eyes. “Erik sits at the head. Vivaine and Corinne are sitting close and eyeing each other, but the Shark King has not yet arrived to tip the balance… The bucks are bickering already. Joel and Amara of the coyotes are up and coming, though, and they chose to sit in the middle.” She turned to her father. “I would sit on the opposite side of the coyotes.”

“Why is that?”

“It’s close enough to power to contribute to the conversation, but on the door side of the room in case violence breaks out.” Ravens, like rabbits, were not physically strong and shied away from direct confrontations.

Gaubert patted her hair. “Well reasoned, my cautious girl. Then we sit in the middle.” He gave Jessie another little nod and moved to sit.

Three men in crisp suits arrived and three… less-than-crisp individuals entered with them. It had started to rain and droplets glittered like diamonds on their coats under the bright chandelier lights.

John Donovan was a tall, elegant Black man, the controlling partner at the law firm of Donovan and Associates. He also happened to be a great white shark and the Shark King of Seahaven. He smiled at Jessie, a flash of white against mahogany, and said, “Please accept our apologies for being late.”

The pretty brunette woman at his side with kind, tired eyes nodded. “Our car broke down. Donovan was kind enough to stop for us.” Rachel was the Matron of the rabbits and being in charge of over three hundred bunnies took its toll.

 

[Penpilot]

'Everybody has a backstory. Nobody cares.'

Sorry. I couldn't resist. I'll leave now.

 

[Finchbearer]

You begin with action to get the reader's attention.

Backstory? The rule of thumb here is:
'Everybody has a backstory. Nobody cares.'

For that, you sneak the 'need to know' bits into dialogue or the odd memory - 'coming here reminded her of...'

I agree with this. Maybe it’s along the lines of a 15 course tasting menu rather than one big meal. Small bits of backstory placed throughout the writing is easier on the eyes than one massive info dump, and there are many ways to achieve this. I’m always trying to find this balance in my own writing.

 

[SwiftieDaughterOfAthena13]

Sorry. I couldn't resist. I'll leave now.

That was perfect

 

[WTFisReality]

Hello, you're not alone with this problem. How much information to provide the reader is a constant task we all take on as writers. It is an extremely sensitive balance, almost like watering a plant. Too much information and you'll drown the reader in boredom. Not enough information, and they'll be left confused and frustrated while their faith in you as a story teller dries up.

My approach is to attempt to convey only the information that the reader needs in order to understand what's coming up in the story, I never want them confused, but I also never want them bored. Not saying that's the only way or the best way, but that's just a general rule I'm comfortable with.

I try to be extremely strict, maybe even too strict, on the amount of information I put on the reader especially early on.

As the story progresses, you'll have built more of a relationship with the reader, they'll be more lenient as the story goes on and also as the story goes on you should be able to find opportunities among different character's dialogue to convey information. I believe any information you need to convey that can be learned by the reader through your characters interacting, or while action is taking place, or while other stuff is going on that's more immediate, is the best way to slide in information and you should try to hit that sweet spot as much as you can. Try to hide your info dumps as much as you can, blend them into the story like a shadow the reader can't even see.

And something to consider, with conveying to the reader who a character is, a lot of information can be pulled through how the character deals with things in real time. What they do in the story and the things they say in the story give an enormous amount of information to the reader and you don't even have to info dump at all. Hemingway was extremely good at this and it is a powerful concept to keep in mind during your story telling.

If you need to info dump a couple paragraphs here and there because your world and story calls for it, sort of needing to catch the reader up a little bit to avoid confusion, is completely understandable and the reader even expects it; but you just always have to check yourself and in my case, I'm pretty strict. I would much much much rather the reader have the desire of wanting more information, than receiving too much, because there's more of a chance they read on, curious, and interested, than be overwhelmed with things they don't even know how to connect yet. So for that reason, I tend to lean on the less is more spectrum, but I have received feedback that I'm not giving enough, and the reader wants more, which is not necessarily ideal. It's a difficult balance for us all I believe. Hope that helps, good luck to you.

 

[pmmg]

I will say, in my first rendition of my story, I had an info-dumpy part that I thought was rather small. It took up a page and was like 4 paragraphs or so, and I lived with it for years, until...I got close to publication and knew I had to address it.

My solution was to rearrange the opening scenes, write entirely new content, change the POV of one some of the scenes, and write on as if it was either infer the reader could infer, or with the confidence that it would come out later. When adding some scenes to the opening, I was cognizant of the missing info and tried to put some of it in with the things the characters said, but I did not force it.

That seems rather dramatic for just removing something info-dumpy, but I knew I was up the task, and its what it needed. So, that was my answer.

 

[skip.knox]

First, why do you call it info-dump? Why do *you* read it that way, rather than as a fascinating glimpse into another world, which is probably how you meant it. If you can identify why it fails *for you*, you're on the road to fixing it. Or throwing it all out. *shudder*

Second, nobody cares about your world. It's your job to make them care. Not to inform them, mind, but to make them care.

Third, people more readily care about characters than about setting. This is not *always* true, but it's still where I aim. The job of the opening chapters for me is to get the reader to care about the characters primarily and, secondarily, to care about what is happening (the plot).

People often say, only provide as much world info as is necessary, or variations on that theme. Sure. And how am I supposed to judge that? As author, especially as an author just diving into a new story, *it's all important!*

That's where the principles above help me. I think about the characters. I come up with a scene in which the characters can be in some way memorable, distinctive. If I can make them sympathetic or repellent as well, that's a bonus, but I try to set expectations anyway. If I can do that for the characters, then the setting must serve that purpose.

As for telling the reader about the magic system or high politics and such, I confess I mostly duck and weave. I don't have rules, I have parameters. Guidelines. Even where I do have this or that group adhering to something more systematic, I reference it mostly through character dialog rather than narration. That is to say, what's revealed is only what the characters themselves believe and choose to divulge at that particular moment in the story. And I've grown fond of setting out certain rules or principles so that I can later subvert them, show that the characters were mistaken or intentionally lied.

Anyway, to return to the original point, I encourage you to banish the word "infodump" from your vocabulary. What you have is a passage--even if it's whole chapters--that you find boring or unfocused. Get in there and see what's worth fixing and fix it. The rest can go into your story bible, or else it gets archived (a wonderfully useful notion, the archive being a bottomless trash can of things you just might get back to some day).

 

[Prince of Spires]

A first thing to realize is that different people have different levels of tollerance for infodumps, which is why Skip has a point saying that there isn't really such a thing. Some people will roll their eyes at you and stop reading the moment you give two sentences that aren't directly moving the story forward, while others will happily read the prologue and appendices to Lord of the Rings (which is about 115 pages of pure infodumping...).

Then, there are a few things to "get away with it." The easiest one is to put it towards the middle / back of the book. Once your reader cares about your character, then they'll accept a bit of backstory more easily. Better yet, if you've hinted at an important, dark bit of backstory for your protagonist for the first 200 pages of the book, then they will eagerly read that bit on page 201.

It's also easier to chop it up into smaller pieces. People will stop reading if you start with an encyclopedia entry-like infodump for the whole of chapter 1. However, if you add two sentences on p1, and another 5 on p8, and 1 more on p13 and so on, then you can get away with conveying a lot of information without the reader noticing or complaining. Of course, these bits need to be relevant to the story you're telling, otherwise they'll simply not make any sense. But for instance, if you want your reader to know your character grew up poor, you don't go into a whole section about his poor childhood. Instead, you can make a simple reference on p1 when your character walks across a market saying something like: "As Bob crossed the marketplace, the sweet smell of the sticky cinamon roll drew him to the bakers stall. Remembering how he'd stood there looking up at the rolls as a kid, wishing for one but never able to afford one, he indulged himself and bought two."

Or something similar of course. With a bit of polishing, those 2 sentences can do a lot more heavy lifting than a whole paragraph of background. It can show us about the world, the backstory of the character, and his personality. All without drawing the reader out of the story.

 

[Rexenm]

Whenever I start info dumping, there is always my conscience telling me to stop. It is always a negative. I used to think that I could power through, but I never could. A lot of the magic of story telling becomes more important than real info dumping. It takes precedence over relevance. As soon as you start, you stop. That is my rule.

For example, a story about two men going to the theatre, going on for about a page, with the plot of the movie. It is not relevant, and in your heart they may not even be friends, but there may be some plot progression you wish to portray.

Or, at the scene of the crime. A character segues into reminiscing about the return to the scene of the crime before eluding to what the crime actually was. Maybe that is your minds eye telling you, it is really about something else, not your story.

Or, maybe a story beginning with a knock outside, that turns into a fairy tale, or a dreamland, from another universe. Just sayin’…

 

[JBCrowson]

I am having a similar issue in editing my first draft. Originally I had a dozen scenes over 7 chapters that explained how the MC's romantic interest came to be chosen as the annual sacrifice to propitiate the local deity. This centuries old practice had become a political wrangle of factions trying to dispose of a rival faction member.
I realised all that politicking was peripheral to the MC, so I'm re-writing from the point the romantic interest is selected, using the MC and his circle's reactions to give enough information about the background machinations to make sense. It means the plot starts at the point he has two weeks to figure out how to try and save her. The intensity of his changing emotions as he deals with the situation (shock, denial, guilt, anger) will hopefully help display his character and bond him with the reader.

 

[A. E. Lowan]

Okay, I'm going to pull the writing bus over for a moment for a PSA.

If you are a neophyte writer, if you are poking at an idea that's kind of more just a vibe, and most importantly if you keep stopping yourself in order to avoid something like an infodump, stop. Stop... breathe... and step back just a bit. The first drafts (yes, plural) are just you telling yourselves the story. I've also heard it, from Shannon Hale, I think? that the first drafts are just you piling up the sand so you can make castles, later.

The first drafts are just you barfing words on the page. They don't need to be good. And they certainly won't be ready to show anyone for a few more iterations. Play. Learn. Grow. And then fuss about craft.