How to Cut the Info-Dumps

Info-dumping is one of the biggest stumbling blocks in a first draft--especially if you're a pantser, and you're working out all the characters and settings as you go. Even if you've made careful, thorough character sketches ahead of time, you'll still discover new things about your characters as you write them. The same goes for your story world. If you're doing a good job of integrating your setting into your plot, you will find yourself exploring all manner of back alleys and sordid histories.

This is all part of the process, but some times the resulting text isn't terribly gripping for the reader, or is simply isn't necessary. Nobody enjoys reading long-winded blocks of characterization or exposition. Imagine if you met someone at a party and they immediately wrapped their arms around you and started whispering in your ear about their emotional problems. Or if you moved to a new apartment complex, and one of your neighbors cornered you and started spilling the last year's worth of gossip. It would be super awkward in real life, so why should it be acceptable in fiction?

Part of the problem is that info-dumps bring your story to a screeching halt so you can deliver a lecture (Like this quote? Click here to tweet it!). Nobody wants to pause a chase scene to consider some novel fact about the fruit stand the bad guy just crashed through. We want to get on with the show.

Furthermore, info-dumps are actually counter-productive. If you force feed your reader hulking blocks of information, they'll probably wind up tuning you out. Even if they don't, no reader is going to remember everything, so by the time a piece of backstory becomes relevant, they may have forgotten it.

The solution is to mete out your characterization and exposition in moderation. Give your readers only what they need, when they need it. In real life, we don't read a person's biography the day we meet them. We don't memorize maps and history books before we move to a new city. We just dive in head first and learn as we go. Make it the same way for your readers, and your book will start to feel real.

Characterization and exposition are yet another show and tell issue. Whenever possible, find a way to show us things about a character. Don't tell us the character is a lazy slob, show him tripping over a pile of dirty clothes while eating a slice of pizza that's been sitting out all night. Not only will the message come across clearer, but you will involve us in the story by inviting us to draw our own conclusions about this guy.

We're all guilty of overdoing things in first drafts. So how do you deal with it in editing?

First off, when you cut out long passages of characterization and exposition, don't simply delete them. They might contain insights you can use later. Keep all the parts you cut in a separate document. If you use character and setting sheets like mine, copy characterization into the relevant character sheet, and exposition into the relevant setting sheet. Long info-dumps aren't welcome in a story, but they make great notes that you can use to inform your decisions moving forward.

Look for any long, unbroken paragraphs. Anywhere you spend a lot of time in the narrative voice, you might be info-dumping. In general, I try to start a new paragraph every time there would be a camera cut if my story were a movie. Any time I see a long paragraph in my own work, chances are there's some info-dumping going on.

That won't always be the case, but it's a good rule of thumb to look for excessive characterization and exposition in passages of narrative. Dialogue and internal monologue will convey information about your characters, but they do so unobtrusively. In fact, dialogue and internal monologue are the best ways to get your characters across, so you don't really want to cut it unless it's just too much at once.

...and if you're going to show people doing things, why
not show them doing AWESOME things?

With settings, you should always try to show people doing things. Don't tell us about an environment, find some way for a character to interact with it. Don't give us a history lesson, make someone need information about a place's history. Make that information mean something in the present.

There are no hard and fast rules on how to write characterization and exposition, or on how to cut them out when they're clogging up your story. The result you're going for is characters and settings that come to life without you ever conspicuously throwing the "on" switch. You don't want readers to know about your characters, you want them to feel their emotions. You don't need readers to pass a quiz on your setting's history, you want them to feel like they've lived there. So just toss your readers into the fray and let them sort it out. They can handle it in their real lives. Assume they're intelligent enough to handle it in your story.

Admonitions for Pantsers

Writers are defined by their approach to the task.  On one end of the spectrum, you have Plotters (thanks to James Scott Bell for introducing me this distinction), who range from people who write a simple, hand-drawn idea webs, to obsessive-compulsive people like me, who have quasi-romantic feelings for charts, spreadsheets and bullet lists.

On the other hand, you have the Pantsers, who sit down to a blank page and just go.  They let the ideas flow, and worry about arranging them into a coherent order later.  Sounds like the easy alternative, right?

Not if you ask me.

If you've ever talked to someone who wrote a novel, and they told you "It's a mess..." chances are you were talking to a Pantser.  If you ever wrote something, then looked at it after the heat of creation had cooled, and thought "God this is awful," then chances are you Pantsed your way through it without a plan.

In case it's not apparent, I'm not a big fan of this strategy.  I think refusing to plan ahead is disrespectful to the task of writing a novel.

But the aggravating fact is, a lot of good writers are Pantsers.  Stephen King, whom I all but worship, is a Pantser (though he doesn't use the term when he discusses his methods in On Writing).  And to me, that's maddening.  How Pantsers manage to wrangle bloated, festering novels filled with irrelevant scenes into readable books is beyond me.  But people do it.

Most of the Pantsers I've encountered, however, are what they are because they don't know anything else.  And I can't blame them for that.  They're simply stuck in the first of the Four Stages of Competence. And there's no shame in that.

The thing is, you don't apply to Novelist Incorporated when you decide to become a novelist.  There's no predetermined course of training (alright, there are creative writing degrees, but you know what I mean).  There's nobody to tell you you must learn story structure before you attempt a novel.  I'd be willing to bet that most novelists start as Pantsers.  Even I, loudest herald of the Plotters, started as a Pantser.

But if you're aware of the distinction, and you choose to remain a Pantser, there are some things I think you should come to terms with, or you'll find your writing life an unhappy one.

Above all, you MUST accept the reality that you will delete 4-5 times as much as you you keep. It's the price of "letting ideas flow".

In this world, most ideas are bad. If you don't accept that early, you're in for a world of heartache.

This is the job. This is what you signed up for. When writers talk about killing your darlings, this is what they mean.

Another thing to realize now is that the burden of editing lies on you first.  Unless you have an ongoing relationship with a professional editor, you can't just write any old drivel and expect someone else to "fix it".  Even with a professional editor, it's rarely that simple.  Writing is hard work, but editing is what makes writing readable. If you're not participating in the editing process, you don't deserve the credit for the final draft.

The last thing to realize is that the defining emotion of your writer's journey is going to be frustration.  You are going to hit road blocks, and you're not going to have a map around them.  You're going to write scenes that go nowhere.  You're going to put characters in situations where they don't belong.  You're going to foreshadow some turn of events and then forget about it by the time it should come to fruition.  You are going to make massive story revisions and practically rewrite your books from the ground up.  In short, your rough drafts are going to be really...

...bad.  And 90% of the work you do as a writer will not be "letting ideas flow", it will be fixing the jumble of ideas that spilled out of you.

If you're willing to spend 90% of your time fixing what you wrote, then my hat is off to you.  As negative as I sound about Pantsing, I applaud the hardy souls who are able to work this way.  I don't have the emotional fortitude for it.  But if you do, then go forth with my blessing.

If this post scared you away from Pantsing, check out my Plotter's Manifesto and my series on Story Structure