An Easy Tip to Avoid Infodumps in Your Dialogue

By Janice Hardy

Just because a character says it, doesn’t mean it isn’t an infodump.

Dialogue is one of my favorite parts of writing. It's fast-paced, grabs attention, and usually keeps the reader reading. When two characters are having a zippy conversation, readers feel like they’re hanging out with them and are part of the story.

But those conversations can also contain the dreaded infodump-as-dialogue.

Infodumping (throwing in a lot of "need-to-know" information at one time) doesn't just happen to prose. Characters can have conversations they'd never have, talking about things they'd never talk about, just so authors can explain things to readers.

Which is bad, because...

Infodumps remind readers they’re reading, and can knock them right out of the story.

How to Describe Your Setting Without Infodumping

By Janice Hardy

Bring your world to life without burying readers in the details.

Crafting a setting is about more than telling readers where your story takes place—it’s about inviting them to step inside your story world and making them feel like they belong. When your setting feels real, your characters also feel real, and readers are more likely to care about what happens to them. A well-drawn world can ground your narrative and create an immediate emotional connection.

It’s tempting to describe every brick, breeze, and blade of grass in a setting you love, but too much description all at once can drown your story (and reader) in information. Instead of pulling readers in, you risk making them feel like they’re slogging through a travel brochure.

The strongest settings come alive organically. They’re woven into the action, filtered through the character’s perspective, and delivered in easy-to-digest spoonfuls that keep the story moving while showing readers all they need to know about the world.

The Danger of Infodumps (And How to Avoid Them)

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Infodumps aren’t the end of the world for a novel—as long as you keep these things in mind.

One of my critique groups has two cozy mystery writers in it. While I don’t write cozies, I am writing a private detective series, which is why I’m in this group. One surprising thing I’ve learned, is that cozy readers love infodumps.

They like learning about something new. They want their amateur sleuth to give them mini-lectures on the dangers of radon gas or how a proper English breakfast is made.

This makes it a little hard to critique those pages, since all my instincts are screaming “Danger! Danger! Infodumps ahead!” In most genres, all that extra information is bad.

However, it is a great reminder that not all infodumps are created equal. They do have their uses, and when done well, a little infodumping actually makes the story clearer (and sometimes more interesting).

Tips on Writing "The Boring Stuff" Readers Tend to Skip

By Jenna Harte

Part of The How They Do It Series

JH: Readers skim when they read, especially if nothing is really going on in the story. Jenna Harte shares tips on keeping readers engaged in your novel.

Jenna Harte is a die-hard romantic writing about characters who are passionate about and committed to each other, and frequently getting into trouble. She is the author of the Valentine Mysteries, the first of which, Deadly Valentine, reached the quarter-finals in Amazon’s Breakthrough Novel Award in 2013. She has a contemporary romance series, Southern Heat, and a cozy mystery series, Sophie Parker Coupon Mystery Series. 

Romance authors can join her free writing community for support, accountability and more at WritewithHarte. Jenna loves talking to anyone and everyone about romance fiction. You can join her free romance fiction reader community, SwoonworthyHEA to talk romance with other readers.

 

Website | Goodreads | Facebook | Pinterest | Instagram | YouTube

Take it away Jenna...

6 Places Infodumps Like to Hide in Your Novel

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Not everything you know about your story belongs in your novel.

A quick heads up...I'm over at Writers in the Storm today asking, Does Your Novel Have a Problem? 

People tend to think infodumps are the bane of science fiction and fantasy writers, but they happen to everyone. Mystery writers dump how and why characters wound up in places they shouldn’t be in, romance writers share the tragic backstories of the love interests, historical writers elaborate on the history (though their readers probably enjoy their infodumps), and mainstream writers share way too much information about the people and places in their story.

We all do it, and I actually don’t mind infodumps on a first draft. It’s a useful way to get the history and backgrounds straight in my head as I write, but they’ve got to go during draft two.

Infodumps pull readers out of the story to explain something in the story.

Why Your Novel Isn’t Hooking Your Reader

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy 

How to tell the difference between good setup, and bad setup, in your novel.

I’ve always written fantasy and science fiction, so I learned right away how perilous setup is to a novel. I wrote dozens of terrible beginnings and first acts that were barely more than a dramatized version of my notes. Characters gave lectures, they didn’t have conversations. And I’d stick my authorial nose into the story to explain the things my characters didn’t know.

I even wrote the dreaded, history-ladened “fantasy world building prologue” a time or two. [shudders]

On the bright side, facing this extra challenge early on helped me figure out how show, don’t tell and point of view worked, which made writing in general a lot easier. It also taught me a very good lesson I still use today.

4 Reasons Over-Explaining Will Kill Your Novel

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Don’t let the urge to explain ruin your novel.

Writers have trust issues sometimes. We worry whether or not our readers will get what we're trying to do. Will they spot that oh-so-subtle hint in chapter three? Will they get the subtext between the romantic leads in scene five? Is the protagonist’s backstory clear or should we throw in a flashback that explains it?

We worry so much readers might miss something, we end up shoving the story right down their throats.

And that's bad.

Explaining a novel is not the same as telling a story.

For one thing, it frequently leads to bad writing, because we're explaining what happens, we’re not dramatizing a scene as it unfolds. For another, it robs readers of the chance to discover the story and connect to it on their own level. They’re not given the opportunity to make their own choices and decisions about the characters and story and what it means to them.

Reveal a Character's Past Without Falling Into Backstory

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Backstory is a necessary evil in many stories, but you can sneak it in so flows naturally with the scene.

A character's past is important to their character arc, but it's an area that can easily turn into messy backstory or infodump if we're not careful. We drop in information because it has to go somewhere, and getting it out of the way quickly lets us get to the story faster.

Odds are this "drop in" of information is going to make the past feel stuck in, and feel more like backstory than a natural part of the narrative. It can stop the story, kill the pacing, and read like the author held up their hand and said, "Wait, hang on a sec, let me tell you this one thing before we go on."