Down with Info Dumps

 

Morocco has beautiful countryside, but the sight is marred by the litter dumped along the roads.¹ To mangle a well-known cliché, you can’t see the landscape for the trash. Information dumps in fiction work the same way, distracting you from the story.

An info dump is just what it sounds like. A writer takes everything in a character’s background and dumps it into the story all at once. It usually happens in the first chapter, but not always.

I recently finished a Christian novel by a writer who seemed to believe that info dumps were expected. Or maybe she was just too lazy to do it the right way. She isn’t well-known and you aren’t likely to read her anyway, so I won’t embarrass her by using her name.

The first chapter was dominated by an info dump about the female protagonist’s life. While most of it was important to the novel, we didn’t need to know it right away. In fact, dumping it in the first chapter took away some of the suspense the author could have used to her advantage. Both the first chapter and the book as a whole would have been much better if she had woven the background in where it fit with the story.

The second chapter, while not as bad, also contained an info dump, this time about the male protagonist’s life, and not all of it was necessary to the story. On the positive side, she did weave his trouble-making propensities as a boy in later where it fit.

If I hadn’t had other reasons for reading the book, I would have put it down after the first chapter. Or maybe I would have given her the benefit of the doubt and waited until I came across the second info dump, but I wouldn’t have finished it.

Info dumps are a good way to ruin an interesting plot. For one thing, they bore a reader who hasn’t gotten into the story yet. For another, they eliminate suspense. And they can be avoided by waiting and weaving the information into the story when it becomes necessary for the reader to know those particular facts. For example, if your character feels guilty for abandoning her children when they were young, you can show the guilt without the cause and let people know she has a secret without letting them in on it. Then, when she unexpectedly meets her daughter, the information can be gradually revealed or, if it makes for greater tension, can be revealed all at once. But you don’t have to do it in Chapter 1 if she doesn’t meet her daughter until Chapter 12.

No author does herself or himself a favor by telling too much about her characters too soon.

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¹ I took the photograph on a recent trip to Morocco.