"info dumping" question.

Some great advice here I think. Just to add to the chorus, I love the story of Hidalgo and would very much enjoy reading more about it in a fictionalized context.

I suspect you're wrong when you say it isn't central to the story - it sounds to me like it is a strong motivating factor in your MCs actions. Understanding her own emotional motivations is really important in my opinion. Plus, people just love to feel like they are learning real stuff while the read great books.

The hard part is just incorporating it so that it isn't too info dumpy. Think you've gotten great advice here on how to try.

To be fair I'm a total history nerd, but based on your description alone I would definitely check out your book.

I know I'm coming into the discussion a little late. I'm also the "new guy," so I apologize for a lack of a better introduction. But I thought I'd throw in my two cents since this is a topic I've gone back and forth on myself over the years.

In general, I try to stay away from info dumping whenever possible. I always tend to like books and writers that just "tell the damn story" and let their readers pick up on the context clues hidden in the dialogue and other descriptions. I don't like it when writer hand-feeds me everything or tells me too much about a character's internal motivation, so I try to write like that as well.

That being said, there are times when info dumping is necessary. The reader has to know the info in order for the story to make sense or to have the right depth and power. But in such cases, I will try to do 2 things to "hide" the info-dumpage.

1) I won't start right out the gate with the info dump. I'll get the story started, get to the interesting bits, and then take a break where it makes sense and explain the back story.

2) I'll mask the info-dump as something else, say a news article or a story or a conversation between two characters about something. To me that feels more organic that stopping in the middle of the story in order to serve up a heaping helping of back story.

I dunno, YMMV, but that's what's worked for me in the past. Hope that helps.

I like it, though you may want to break up this history in some kind of fluid way throughout several scenes / chapters. Maybe not, though, just an option.

based on the up and down feelings from people here as to whether or not they'd like to know the historical background, i recommend seriously thinking about your audience. who is reading it? is it someone like Fizgig that loves history and feels it adds to their experience, or is it someone who's just in it for the entertainment?

I've recently read a few literary novels that are filled with info-dumping, but it's really interesting info-dumping, and the novels were written from an omniscient pov. So the narrator - the godlike figure writing the book, or narrating it - felt like mentioning certain information, historical and descriptive, and did.

But if you're writing third or first, you probably should only 'dump' where the MC would noticeably dump. That is, if the MC notices that a bridge keeps being torn down and rebuilt, and the various reasons why from the 1940's through to the present time, then okay, you keep it in. It's part of the character's personality and he or she is remarking on it.

If, however, the character would simply walk across the bridge, pausing only to spit over the side into the river, you do not infodump.

jaksen said:

If, however, the character would simply walk across the bridge, pausing only to spit over the side into the river, you do not infodump.

Click to expand...

Or you can do something like have him note that he can spit right onto the original foundations from 1601, but can't twist his neck far enough to spit on the remains of the girders that the quake took out in 1910.