The dreaded info dump. The bane of many writers’ existence. We all struggle with info dumping sometimes. Because, yes, we need to explain things, we need readers to know the information, and, sometimes, we really need to show off how cool the worldbuilding is. Or at least we feel like we need those things.
Info dumping is a common problem that writers face—especially in science fiction and fantasy. It’s tough to share information the right way. But there is a “right way”—at least in the sense that there’s a wrong way that should be avoided.
As with any writing rule, there are exceptions, but you gotta learn the rule before you can learn how to break it.
What Is Info Dumping
Info dumping refers to when writers give readers too much information about the background of the characters, the setting, or the world a story takes place in all at once instead of sharing the information as a natural part of the story.
In other words, an info dump is like pressing pause on the story to explain something. The last thing you want to do is pause your story because it causes the story to lose its momentum, and then readers get bored and stop reading. Yikes!
Info dumping can come in a few different forms. It may happen in the exposition when the reader is still new to the world. This usually involves long paragraphs of worldbuilding.
Even if you’re not writing sci-fi or fantasy, this can happen. Maybe your story takes place in a small town in South Dakota, and you find yourself explaining the history of the town and everyone who’s ever lived there—that’s info dumping through worldbuilding.
It can also come in the form of character descriptions. If you find yourself describing every aspect of a character’s appearance or going into an account of their history when you introduce them, that is info dumping.
The other common place it appears is in dialogue, specifically when a character starts monologuing. In real life, conversations don’t usually happen like that unless someone’s giving a speech. Think about it, even if, say, you have a teacher explaining something, the students ask questions or add their own thoughts to the discussion. In general, when you have one character spending paragraphs of dialogue in explanation, that’s info dumping.
Info dumping commonly occurs at the beginning of a story, in villain monologues, when two characters who’ve been apart for a portion of the story explain to each other what they’ve been doing, when new characters are introduced, and when the protagonist enters a new setting.
Ways to Convey Information Without Info Dumping
So how do you avoid dumping too much information on your reader? Here are a few strategies for conveying information in different ways.
Short Explanations
As long as you keep your explanations short and rare, you can actually just explain things through exposition. You’re not going to be able to convey everything you need to through the other strategies, so you may have to occasionally use this one.
But be careful how you go about it. Use the least number of words you can. Ask yourself if the information you’re sharing is absolutely necessary (and don’t forget to give your readers credit; they’ll be able to pick up on a lot without you coddling them).
But really you should only use exposition if there’s no other way to convey the information. It’s always more interesting to gather information through dialogue or action than exposition.
Dialogue
Dialogue is my favorite way to convey information.
You may be thinking, “But you just said info dumping commonly occurs in dialogue!”
Yes, it can. But that’s not the kind of dialogue I’m talking about here. I’m talking about conversations that convey information. They’re a little less direct and imply more of the information, but they feel more natural. Instead of having one character explain everything about a topic you can show the information through a conversation between characters.
Let’s take a look at a couple of examples.
Bad example:
The palace seemed to rise into the sky as Sarah and Tom approached it.
“The king hates unexpected visitors, and the queen is on the Southern Coast, escaping this nightmare of a family,” Tom said. “We’ll only have about five minutes before the king throws us out. Then we’ll be on our own protecting this city from the prince. As you know, Sarah, the king wants nothing to do with his son, so he might throw us out before the five minutes are up.”
“His own son.” Sarah shook her head. “I know he doesn’t care, but it still makes me sick.”
Tom shrugged. “The king is cruel. That’s why his son is going to destroy this city. He wants revenge on his father.”
What do we learn:
- The royal family is messed up.
- The king doesn’t care about his son
- The prince is attacking the city to get revenge for the way his father has treated him
- The queen escapes to the Southern Coast
Better example:
The palace seemed to rise into the sky as Sarah and Tom approached it.
“We’ll only have about five minutes before the King throws us out,” Tom said.
“He won’t listen to news about his own son?” Sarah asked.
Tom shook his head. “Why do you think the prince is attacking the city? The king has never given him the time of day.”
“What about the queen?”
“She’s never here. Always on the Southern Coast.”
What do we learn:
- The royal family is messed up.
- The king doesn’t care about his son
- The prince is attacking the city to get revenge for the way his father has treated him
- The queen escapes to the Southern Coast
While the second conversation isn’t perfect, it does feel more natural and it’s shorter. It doesn’t explicitly tell you any of the information, but it still conveys it just the same.
When trying to convey information through dialogue, you need to identify what you want your readers to learn and what your characters already know. Avoid “As you know” explanations; they will always feel staged.
You’ll notice in the second conversation that Sarah seemed to know less about the royal family than Tom. If you can, this is a great way to use characters. If one character knows less and the other knows more, there is a reason for the character who knows more to explain things to the other character.
Characters who frequently explain things to the other characters are called exposition characters. You can overdo this, so be careful with it, but it’s generally a good tool to use. Dumbledore does this frequently throughout the Harry Potter series, and in Criminal Minds Dr. Reid often fills this role.
Action
Action is another great way to convey information.
Note: action doesn’t necessarily mean characters throwing punches or chasing one another. Action simply means that characters are doing something. They have a goal, and they are working toward it.
Their goal can be as simple as getting food. Whether they go to a local market or a supermarket can do a lot of worldbuilding for you. What kind of food is available will show readers even more and what the character gets will show readers who they are.
Let’s compare some more examples.
Bad example:
The city of Akyr was a bustling place, but it was Katy’s home. The buildings rose higher than the clouds and the skyways were always full of traffic. Self-driving cars chauffeured Akyr’s citizens from point A to point B, the cars in the lower lanes traveling only short distances, the higher lanes reserved for those traveling far away.
Akyr Market was the closest market to Katy’s apartment, though not the one she preferred. As a nutritionist, she tried to have a good diet, if only to be an example to her clients. But it was so hard to find proper food in the city. Sometimes when she had time, she’d take the three-hour trip outside the city to Olikugof Market where she knew she’d find fruits and vegetables that were picked just that morning.
But most of the time she had to shop at Akyr market where neon lights illuminated the aisles. The store’s marketing bots tempted its customers with the processed foods that resided in the front of the store. It was hard not to get distracted by the shelves lining the large space filled to the brim with every kind of food she could ever want.
Most customers never made it to the back of the store, and if they did, they would have to take out a loan to pay for everything they put in their carts along the way. Its design was intentional, of course. The robotic voices caught the attention of unsuspecting customers and roped them into buying things they didn’t need. For this same purpose, the bots spouted deals before they let you pay for your items.
The produce section was Katy’s favorite, though “section” was a generous word. It was a single empty aisle. The store, as with every other market in the city, clearly didn’t care about its customers’ health. Every time she went, she had to dig through the options to find what was still fresh among the seemingly forgotten fruits and vegetables.
But the bakery was well stocked with fresh, if heavily processed, bread. The ultra-processed breads were made with refined flour, stripped away of most of the healthy nutrients, and contained preservatives and additives that were terrible for your health.
Better example:
Katy stepped out of her apartment, swiping the band at her wrist past the lock and hearing it click into place. She went out to the street where her car was waiting for her in the drop-off area.
“Akyr Market,” she told the car, and it took off into the air, joining the throngs of traffic in the space between buildings, staying in one of the lower lanes.
The car’s speaker dinged a moment later. When it landed in the drop-off area, she stepped out.
Dinner, she thought to herself as she stepped through the glass doors and into the neon lights of the market. Just dinner. But it was hard not to get distracted by the shelves lining the large space, filled to the brim with every kind of food she could ever want. Robotic voices called out to her as she walked to the back of the store.
“Try the new burger made with alkofoi meat!”
“Just in: ice cream from the tundra of oinfiu!”
Finally, she reached the produce section, though “section” was generous. It was a single empty aisle. She dug through the options, finding what was still fresh among the seemingly forgotten fruits and vegetables. As soon as she picked up an item, a robot wheeled over to her, holding out a basket where she put her choices.
She went to the bakery next, where she had no trouble finding a fresh, if ultra-processed, loaf of bread.
In these two examples, we learn a lot of the same things. However, the latter focuses on the action instead of explaining every little thing about the city and the market. For example, the latter shows readers that she has to walk past the expensive processed foods instead of telling readers about the store’s strategy for getting customers to pay more.
Action is one of the best ways to use the age-old writing advice: show, don’t tell.
I hope these tips help you in your endeavor to stop info dumping. If you’ve learned any other tips about avoiding info dumping, drop them in the comments below. Happy writing!