Avoiding infodump when describing worlds

I explain it from time to time with footnotes when I think is necesarry. Like, Lundenburgh is the capital of the Empire, he was overthrown on a farmers' peaseant, etc.

I try to use the context to explain it out if I can, otherwise I don't mind a little infodump, like a sentence or two here and there, if that's the most 'readable' way to get the information across. Most of the time though I like to introduce things naturally into conversation and then build on that, giving the reader more and more information as we go through the story.

Just as an example, the part I've just written is a conversation between my MC and his old flame, where she's asking for help because her son's got into trouble with the main villain of the piece. I've mentioned the city of Lan Carnoc, which is the capital of the Islands the story takes place on, and I've established that there is a university there just by saying that her son went to university then mentioning later that he 'was supposed to be coming home from Lan Carnoc at Yule' or the likes. I haven't bothered to say that Lan Carnoc's the capital yet, as I'll do that when I actually get to the place, and show that the parliament building is there, the law courts etc. I like to introduce things and then build on them as I go through the story rather than throwing all the information up front.

Whether this is effective or not, no idea

I think just having the characters doing things in their worlds is often enough. Readers will pick up on things like the places and cultural idiosyncrasies without having to be explicitly told what everything means.

I like the way it was managed in Dune. You learned things through the DIFFERENCE from the "normal" way things were done. It's quite easy to comment that Jessica is worried about the visit from the Reverend Mother because she wasn't supposed to have a son. It tells without telling, if you see what I mean.

DamaNegra said:

Let's face it, some kind of infodump is necessary when writing SF&F, especially when the setting is a completely different universe where Earth has nothing to do.

So, how do you give the background on the customs, geography, society, traditions etc. of the people in there without boring or confusing the reader without resorting to "earthling or whatever dragged into an alternate reality therefore has to have everything explained to him"?

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Put snipers in the minarets.

In other words, use aspects of the world early as part of other threads. Bernard Cornwall does this all the time with Sharpe. If musketry is important, he has the Sarge inspect Sharpe's firelock as part of the bullying thread.

Very good point, Zornhau. Although I sort of like the infodump in SFF as a reader, I don't do the same with my own work. I cut, brutally cut, the first 150 pages of Asphodel because I thought it was too infodumpy. I prefer using little teensy bits of info and making action to fit the information I need passed. Occasionally I use a character to explain idiosyncracies to my MC since it's in first person POV. But long paragraphs of information. Not if I can help it.

I know when I get whacked by a major infodump I either glaze over and keep going or stop reading and pick it up later. Both ultimately are failures. Maybe my fault, maybe the author's.

When I first draft a book I tended to info dump just to get my ideas out, but then I got back in and change it to action. I think the reader is more likely to remember that there is no gravity on the world by you describing a couple have sex in zero G than saying, "The planet X lacked a gravitational pull, which had...."

Just my 2 cents

The best place to look, I think, is in the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. Gordon van Gelder and John Joseph Adams are very, very picky about this sort of stuff, and do an excellent job keeping the infodump to the absolute minimum, masterfully handled.

Study the guys who do it best, and see with your own eyes how they handle those problems.

I'm terrible at 'telling' so I show almost everything, including the world building. If the information isn't revealed naturally in a scene, then chances are it doesn't belong there anyway. I will occasionally give a single sentence of 'telling', like stating that a pair of countries are in an ongoing cold war when it becomes relevant to the plot, but I don't mention the numerous complex reasons behind the conflict or the set of military and economic factors keeping it from becoming a hot war. It's a novel, not a fictitious history book.

The closest I've ever come to info dumping is explaining how certain things work, usually magical objects or practices. I've noticed that the magical elements tend to be more confusing (maybe because they can do practically anything) to readers than things like societies and politics. I have several paragraphs explaining how dragons work (mainly to explain that they're just animals and in no way magical) and a full paragraph on how to use a flying carpet. But these sorts of explanations are spread out throughout the books and aren't given until the information becomes relevant.