The AmWritingFantasy Podcast: Episode 48 – How to Avoid Info Dumps

You've heard about them. You know they are bad.

But what, exactly, are info dumps, why are they such an issue, and how can you avoid them in your writing?

Autumn and Jesper discuss info dumps, why writers feel the pull to use them, and how to keep them away from your WIP in this week's episode!

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Read the full transcript below.

(Please note that it's automatically generated and while the AI is super cool, it isn't perfect. There may be misspellings or incorrect words on occasion).

Narrator (2s): You're listening to the amwritingfantasy podcast. In today's publishing landscape, you can reach fans all over the world. Query letters are a thing of the past. You don't even need in literary agent. There is nothing standing in the way of making a living from writing join to best selling authors who have self-published more than 20 books between them. Now onto the show with your hosts, Autumn Birt and Jesper Schmidt.

Jesper (31s): Hello, I'm Jesper and I'm autumn. This is episode 48 of the amwritingfantasy podcast, and this episode is all about info dumps. So what is info dumps? Why do you need to avoid them and how do you avoid them? So yeah, that's, that's a lot of stuff to unpack. There it is. It's almost like, um, an info dumps so we'll have to watch that. I didn't even think about that. I don't know how else.

How else would I introduce a podcast episode if I cannot do an infant home? I don't know. I'll let you invent some sort of character and talk about it or something. Yeah, this'll be a fun one to a loop readers into.

Autumn (1m 11s): But Hey, I enjoy the irony of it. Yeah. So what's happening on your side? Autumn Oh, life is crazy. I have in the last month was crazy enough cause I started the month knowing I wanted a change and to get off the road at the beginning of October and not knowing where to go, what to do or where I'd be living or what I'd be doing when I lived there. And at the end of the month I have, I'm actually going to pick up a job again for a little while working in the environmental field, which is where my master's degree is.

So I'm super passionate about saving the planet and Gretta Thornburg is one of my heroines. So I'm really excited to be working again in conservation for a little while at least, and getting my feet wet. And I moved yesterday. Oh, at least as a listening of this, which is, um, you know, we're recording this earlier in November then compared to when we're releasing it. So at the beginning of November, I moved yesterday to Vermont, which as a state I've always wanted to live in.

And it's odd because our cars are registered in Vermont for when we are traveling, cause it's one of the few States where you don't have to live in the state and you can still register your vehicles there and you can do it online. And it's so easy. And I used to joke, people would walk up to us like, Oh, where are you from in Vermont? And I didn't feel explaining all of that to some stranger in a parking lot. I just say proud. Oh borough. And lo and behold, yesterday I moved to Prato bro. So that's sort of like foreshadowing isn't it? It's like karma.

That's what I thought. Okay. This is total foreshadowing. So I moved to this town and I'm really close to downtown and it's got a food co-op, it's got cafes, there is a brewery in walking distance to my house. And it is just fantastic. And also in the midst of all that craziness, um, we decided to sell our truck and camper. So that was a huge change. And by selling it, we had this great offer that we couldn't turn down. It meant I got rid of my reliable travel vehicle.

So I also had to find a car and buy it in two days. Happily. I actually fell in love with a car that was kind of hard to find and I Kevin up on it and went and test drove like a cross track and all these, you know, almost all the cars out right now look the same. They're like a hatchback on an SUV platform. They're identical. I don't care if it's a Nissan, Hyundai, Subaru, they all look the same to me. Ralph for, I test drove them all and they're kinda got lists.

If anyone doesn't know anything about me, I came from a Mustang family. I like sports cars. Okay. I admit it. I used to have a BMW 328 I and when you hit 70 the exhaust opened up to flow through and the suspension settled because of the air dynamics going over it. And you just felt this car's settle in just fly. Not that I ever did. I swear I was so, such a good driver. But yeah, so I do like my sports cars. I was trying to tell myself, I'm in my forties I don't need a sports car.

I just traveled slowly across the entire continent for a hundred thousand miles, you know, 150 200 miles a day. I don't need a sports car. Oh. But I found a WRX Subaru Impreza hatchback. So it's slightly practical. You can put stuff in it. And I'm in love with this car and this car is in love with me. And after finding it on the 31st of October, I bought it the next day. And it's not a new car, it's a 2012 but I love it.

I it's, it just feels like it was meant to be. Yeah. You know you have the excuse that because, because you just explained that, that you have always loved fast cars and stuff like that. So I'll give you that excuse. But you know what you say about men here in Denmark when you sort of get into your forties and you buy sports cars. Oh yeah. Midlife crisis. Yeah. I'll give you, I'll give you that excuse because you actually said that you loved it before that. And so I guess it doesn't apply to you. I think I had a purple mini Cooper, uh, S so sports Mini-Cooper and I think that was my midlife crisis car because it was a purple mini Cooper.

Come on. This is at least black and a little understated and it's a hatchback. I could have actually, my nephew is buying a brand new WRX and he has an a newer one than the one I just bought that it's a sedan. And I could have bought that from him from a really good price and it's in fantastic shape. But I would have forever thought of it as my nephew's WRX and I'd be like freaking out where this one, you know, it's got a few dings, scratches, and you know, it's, it'll be a perfect daily commuter and I'm really excited.

So, yeah, my life crazy. And

Jesper (5m 59s): it's got to settle down eventually, but it's been a crazy, crazy month in a very whirlwind of a week. So hopefully you've been a little bit more steady I think. Yeah. Well, yeah, I guess you could say more steady, but, uh, but of course we also on to, speaking of selling, uh, you know, we are also trying to sell our house, uh, because, uh, I don't remember if I talked about this on the podcast before, but our, our kids goes to school in another city. It's not that far off, but it's far enough that you can't bicycle or anything.

So you do need to drive there and the bus connections are poor in the sense that you need to take the bus to another city to then change to another bus to go to the city where the school is. So it, it takes like an hour commuting if you want to go and it's like 15 kilometers or something. So it's 50 kilometers. Yeah. It takes like 15 minutes in the car. Right. But you just spend an hour on the bus. So the buses out of the question and cycling is also too far for them. So we, now that the kids starting has started to get older, they also, you know, they want to play with their playmates and stuff.

And I understand, uh, but the, the problem is that every time they want to do that, we have to drive back and forth. So on those days, we ended up driving to deliver them to school in the morning, picking them up in the afternoon, or one of them may be, and then the other one will go and play with somebody then driving that guy home and then driving back to that city in the evening to pick up the other one that driving back again. So we've done in like four times in a day and it's, it's, it's really annoying. Yeah. You're at that age where they're more active, but they can't quite legally drives Yannick.

They can't get around themselves. Right. So I don't know, the, the, the older they've gotten, the more annoying it's getting. So we decided to sell the house and move to that city in step. Uh, but then somebody needs to buy this house and there's, at least, so far has not been much activity, but over the last seven days, the house was actually been shown twice to see that potential. Yeah. But it's so weird because then afterwards, of course the real estate agent always calls us and tell us how it went. And in both cases, the people who then came and saw a house then afterwards told the real estate and yeah, well this, this is a, the kids, one of them said that the kitchen was too small and the other one said that the living room was too small.

And I was like talking to my wife and I was like, I don't get it. You know, why are these people, you know, I'm not am, I don't for my Sega, you know, it's up to them if they want to buy a house on that. But I'm more thinking like you're spending your Sunday or Saturday or whatever, driving out to what's a ha or see a house that you might be interested in. But right there on the internet. When you decided to book the viewing, it says how big all the rooms are and there's pictures of everything.

So why are you spending your time going out looking at a house that y'all already know from the pictures? It's too small. I just don't get it. But ah, I dunno. And of course my wife have to do all the cleaning and we need to prepare everything every time before somebody comes. So, and you can see she gets pretty annoyed when they just show up and like, yeah, it's too small. Like yeah, you should have, no, you're not, not before you cave. Unlike me who I've rented this apartment sight unseen based on pictures and that the, the owners who have the lease are just super nice and informative and, and cut us some deals.

So yeah, there's me and then there's, you just need to find someone like me to buy your house. Super like, yeah, I guess so. I like the photo. Yeah, I'll be good. When can you come to Denmark? Done and you get by this house and then we'll buy another one. I will consider that. Okay. Yeah. And I guess apart from bed we could also mention that, um, we finished up the, you have finished up the content review of the plotting book. Oh yeah. It's going to be a great book. I cannot wait.

Yeah, exactly. So basically now we can get into creating the outline for the book, one of our new series, because that's going to be a download downloadable example within the plotting book. So once that is done well we basically write onto editing and publishing. Yes, of course. Driving ourselves crazy cause we have that outlined the book we want to write as well. Yeah. That's one thing at a time. We also have a few causes in the making and all that fun stuff. So one thing at a time.

Narrator (10m 28s): A week on the internet with the amwritingfantasy podcast.

Jesper (10m 35s): Yeah. So I don't know if you noticed this one, uh, but did you see MiFi posted a picture of herself in the amwritingfantasy Facebook group? Did you see that? I might've missed that with all of the moving and driving it. Yeah. Yeah, exactly what it was so cool because she was driving and listening to this podcast and then she posted a picture of herself and set that she was going to a weekend conference. And uh, I dunno, I just love pictures and messages from listeners. So at least I bus bar. Yeah. I think I actually did catch that one cause I remember commenting to my husband ad and that, that is just cool.

It is so neat to see people that, you know saying, Hey, I, I listened to you guys while I was going to a conference. So I did see that one. That was pretty nice. Yeah, I love that. And uh, so, so yeah, please send us more pictures or comments and stuff. We, we loved seeing that. It, it really, I mean if you try to look at it from the podcast producer's point of view here, I mean we were sitting back behind our microphones in isolation and recording some audio and then we also load in somewhere on the side of the world.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. We can't even see each other on the recording either. So it just, it's so awesome when we get a message. Some, you know, people lists from people listening and, and, and whether you like it or not, that's up to you. But you don't, it's not because a am number. I tried to say, you have to tell us that you like the podcast, but it's just cool to notice somebody listening. Right.

Autumn (11m 58s): That's my point. Very cool. Yeah, I mean, yeah, we see the download stats, but individuals are so much more fun to actually hear and talk to, so that's great. We'd love to hear from you. Yeah, I was laughing cause I, I remember, uh, again is eight, but I loved his comments on, um, the little Patrion post I had just done about killing off characters and this perspective. I never really thought about that. He said that, you know, he knew he was going to kill off one, so he had a hard time bonding with the character until he kind of put that aside and really started like, you know, feeling this character out.

I'm like, yeah, I guess that is the alternative as much. You're like really good at Georgia or Marten in just really going in depth of the character, knowing that you're going to ask them in the next chapters. I guess I'm not that hard court either, but it gave me something to think about, which I love. I love it when someone gives me a different perspective and I have to think, well that would be a drawback if I, if I know I'm going to kill someone off life changed my mind about how I develop them or make them just a little bit more annoying.

So maybe the readers don't feel quite as bad or am I going to make them even more awesome so that readers really feel bad, so bad.

Jesper (13m 15s): Yeah. Yeah. Actually I think, well not killing off characters as such, but we are talking a bit in the plotting book about, uh, you know, making sure that readers like the characters and have to do that. So that, that's quite interesting. But, uh, I also think, uh, based on what we just said, we, we basically just mentioned the two places where, where you can interact some more. So those, the amwritingfantasy Facebook group. So if you have not joined that one already, please do you, you know, just search for amwritingfantasy in the Facebook group section and uh, you will find us and uh, you can didn't just request to join and we will let you in or I guess maybe probably most likely our awesome moderator Luke will eat us to is because, um, he, he really helps a lot with managing the group.

So we are, we are very much appreciating that, uh, Lucas, so thanks for that. Uh, and the other place you can, uh, get a closer connection or I'll ask questions and all that stuff is on Patrion so there's a link in the show notes for that. And we actually just before recording this podcast episode, we just came off recording the monthly Q and a session. So if you're joining on the $5 tier level on Patrion, you can actually get access to a exclusive monthly Q and a session.

And you can also ask us questions and we will record some good answers for you

Narrator (14m 39s): and onto today's topic.

Autumn (14m 43s): Info dumping. Yeah, we have to not dump. Info we'll, I'll try to explain what it even is. Yeah, I

Jesper (14m 52s): know that a few different types of year. So for example, you could be talking about backstory and for dumping, uh, you could talk about wealth building, info dumping, and then there's also emotional infidelity thing

Autumn (15m 6s): and where do you put historic? There's often people who want that backstory set us the world building stuff for science. I guess it is, I was thinking about it a little bit differently, but I guess in a way it really is what came before. So that's part of world-building.

Jesper (15m 20s): Yeah, indeed. I mean, but maybe, maybe we should start out by defining what info dump in is and then also just say why is it an issue to do infidelity?

Autumn (15m 32s): Absolutely. I think that is important. I know for you know, I have to go ahead and Google like with the official definition is maybe you'll do that while I'm talking, but to me it's, it's when you're reading and you get to a part that it's not a plot of the novel, it's not action. It suddenly this, you know, it's not just a couple sentences, it's paragraph. Sometimes pages of information that really doesn't do anything to move the story forward. And that is my personal definition of info dumping.

And I'm not sure if it says something different online.

Jesper (16m 8s): Hmm. No, not really. There's just a lot of opinions. Uh, but, but I, I think, um, info dumping. So that's basically where you are. You're selling the reader some information. So this could be something, as I, as I just said, look, you know, character backstory, it could be something to do with the world as such, or some about how a certain kingdom works or a religion or magic system or whatever it may be. Am or it could be, ah, well my emotional stuff, like, uh, how the reader feels about something, but when it's done, as in not in the narrative of the story, but it's just you the writer telling to the reader that, okay, so this kingdom over here works like this and that, or it was actually the soda 200 years ago, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

You know, that sort of thing is info dumping. Where's there's nothing wrong with telling the reader that blah, blah, blah. Happened 200 years ago. If it's because one character is telling it to another character who doesn't know it, then it's absolutely fine and it's not an info dump but it's an infrared on if if it's just you getting it across to the reader because you need to maybe just tell it because you think it's important to the story and maybe it is important to just oil but then it is sort of the mechanism or the the way that you're delivering the information that defines if it's an info dump or not.

Cause that makes sense.

Autumn (17m 37s): That does. I think the telling is really the key thing. You are just giving the reader information without having it be an active part of the plot. The characters not going through it. It's not dialogue and even the dialogue, you have to be careful because if you have the characters saying and in dialogue, but again, it has really no impact on the story or it's just this tiny, you know, it's like almost reading a bedtime story where someone's relating information that you're just like, and they're saying it in a way that is not natural and they're just piling on like a monologue and a superhero's fill.

It doesn't work that way. You don't want a whole monologue of saying, well, you know, you have to remember you, even though you've known this since you were five years old, that this happened 200 years ago and that is why we're doing this now. No, that's still, that's still info dumping. I don't care if it's in dialogue, if the character should know it, they should come across as knowing it. Um, even if it's like, well, you remember or something. Yeah, it's very difficult. But definitely the telling, I think you hit the key aspect there that it's something that goes on for a long time, that it may or may not have something to do with the plot of the novel.

It had, could have some key part of it, but you're just telling it to the reader instead of showing it or having the characters somehow demonstrate it and show it. And that's a huge issue. And why, why, why do you think, why does it bother you? Yes, for sure.

Jesper (19m 2s): Uh, three things. I would say not one, but three things. Why am I not surprised you on the list already? I always have lists. I'm, I'm always, I love making lists and all that, you know, that especially to do lists. No. But okay. Three things. So one, um, info dumps simply stops the forward momentum of the story. So we, it sort of breaks the story and then you're getting this paragraph of 200 years ago in a kingdom far, far away.

And it's like, yeah, okay. But what happened to the fight that was just about to happen? So it just breaks the momentum and that's not good. The other thing is that it removes the Rida from sort of the story world, if we can call it that. So it pulls the reader out of the story and because as soon as you start reading info dumps on a page, you're not immersed in the story anymore. You sort of, as a reader, you're, you're pulling yourself out of it and then you're reading some, some facts stuff, yadda. Okay, I see. I see. Okay. And then you're getting back and trying to get back into the story in it.

And every time you pull the reader out of the story, that's not good. You want to keep them in merge so that they keep just flipping pages and one, see what's happening next. So that's why it's important not to deliver the information as an input on, but as part of the narrative of the story. And then thirdly,

Autumn (20m 22s): yeah, it's just boring. It's a good reason I had to fit. That's, I think that's one of my pet peeves is one that you lose the momentum and the T. V you know, that bond with the reader or the character cause I mean that's why I'm reading a stories. I like the character and usually it has nothing to do with the character or anything that's happening in all those emotions in grand things. It's just facts. And honestly, when I hit, um, if I, if I keep reading the story, you know, the first info John per two, I can probably get through it and I will honestly skipped pages.

I'll keep scanning through it and I don't read the crap anyway. But then if it starts happening too many times, that's it. I just, you know, that's when your to do list comes up and you're like, I really should be doing laundry. Why am I reading this right now? I'm not enjoying it anymore. Away he goes the book and off I end up doing other things, walking the dog because I remembered I didn't walk the dog today. So yeah, that's, it's a big issue. If you have too many of these things, readers will one skip it. So if they're not getting the information anyway and two, they might just be close in the novel and goodness knows of you, they closed the novel on something that wasn't exciting, they might not ever come back to it.

That's a big problem.

Jesper (21m 40s): Yeah, absolutely. And so the question is, okay, if we all agree that this is a problem, I think based on what we just talking about, probably most people can sort of recognize themselves as readers when they are subjected to info Thompson and recognize that it's not something we want to do. So I guess the question is why do we write info dumps if, if, if all of this is, is something that maybe we are more or less aware of. Uh, and, and personally I think it's because of movies because you know, if, uh, if for example, if we take the matrix, for example, yeah.

So in, in the matrix, the, when Morpheus is introducing new to the crew of the neighborhood, what is it called? Never can Nisa or something like that. The strip basically. So in that scene, in that scene there you have the camera panning over the crew and while the pan, the camera pans over the crew, more fuel system telling you about each of the crew neck crooner members, uh, and then basically also the viewer, meaning you watching it then. So you get to know each one.

But the thing is that it's not boring because we have the visual medium to support the introduction of each character. We can see what they look like, what they're doing and get the medium in. Movies are just different than books. But I think we are getting too much influenced by the movies and then we think that we're gonna we kind of have to replicate that in our books as well.

Autumn (23m 10s): I agree. And I also think often it's excitement on the part of the writer there just there's this cool world they developed or this, you know, interesting backstory. Like we were saying like 200 years ago in the time of the gods, blah blah blah. You've, it's almost like, you know, the setting up the prologue. But if it's not important in the story, if it's not inter woven into the whole fabric of the world, yeah, you don't need to show it.

It's, I, I like, I've often tell young writers, new writers that you have the space of the novel, 100,000 words to share your world. Don't try to fit it into the first chapter. You just want to kind of spread out those amazing things. Like today about this world, I just discovered those. There's a plant called purple, purple Berry. Um, there's a plant that actually produces these really cool purple berries. I didn't know that about this world. It took me until I was 45 to discover this ornamental plant.

That's amazing. That's what you want to do for your readers. You want to put the purple Berry, you know, way back there and hopefully just the middle of the novel that the discover this stuff as they go. So it's still new and exciting on page 345 as it was on page three. So that's to me what's important with info dumping is learning to spread out those descriptions and not being so excited to tell everyone about this really cool thing you, you created and wrote and developed in page two or three.

Because if you're that excited, you probably, you're too excited about your world. You need to back up and look at your characters and your novel and your story and make sure that those are really what's driving it forward and not just a showcase for the amazing world you developed, which it should be amazing, but that's not what you're telling the story. No, true, true.

Jesper (25m 3s): Um, actually, um, I have, um, I have an audio clip queued up here that we can listen to and you don't even know what it is. Autumn no, I dealt with this is kinda you, you hinted about this before we started recording and you're like, Oh, I'm not gonna tell you quite curious. I'll let you found and prepared for us. Yeah. Because I, I prepared a bit of an audio clip here, which I think serves as an excellent example of what I just said before on why I think it is that, uh, we authors sometimes get into wanting to do these input.

Dumps and, uh, this is an info dump. It's an info Don from a very, very famous fantasy story, but I promise you it's awesome and you're going to like it. Okay, let's go. Okay. So, um, I think autumn and myself will go on mute here so we don't accidentally cough. And then, uh, while, uh, while we do that, you dear listener, you just sort of sit back and relax and just enjoy these next few moments.

Lord of the Rings (26m 14s): The world is changed. I feel it in the water. I feed it, I smell it.

It began with the forging of the great rings. Three were given to the Elves immortal, wisest and fairest of all beings. Seven to the dwarf Lords, great minors and craftsmen of the mountain halls and nine, nine rings were gifted to the race of men who above all else, desire power. For within these rings was bound the strength and will to govern each race, but they were all of them deceived for another ring was made in the land of model and the fires of Mt.

Dew, the dark Lord sold on forged in secret mastering to control all of this and into this ring he poured. His cruelty is malice and his will to dominate all life. One ring to rule them all, one by one, three lambs to the power of the ring. But there was some, who is this?

Did I lost Alliance of men marched against the armies of more doors and on the slopes of Mt. Dew they fought for the freedom of middle earth.

Victory wasn't here. The power of the ring could not be undone.

It was in this moment when all hope had faded at eco door, son of the King took up his father's saw song.

The enemy of the free peoples of middle earth was defeated.

Jesper (30m 11s): Oh, that stuff just gives me goosebumps is I would say for an info dump, it is spectacular. But that's because they're throwing in sound effects and if you're actually watching and visuals. So that makes it an exciting info dump and an important piece of history that goes with the Lord of the rings. Yeah, I mean it is so awesome and I, I think that this is exactly why, especially probably new writers want to do the same in the novel, that they want to replicate this stuff.

But as you just say, you know what, with this info dump here, you have of course the visuals when you're watching it. But even without the visual, just listening to it like this still gives me the goosebumps. But it has, you know, it has to great, great music. It has the awesome voice acting. So you know, all of that is, it's just not there on the page when, when, when you write it, I mean, you cannot replicate this stuff on the peso. As I said before, the medium of movies and the medium of books, it's just different and you cannot copy it.

No, I agree. Yeah, it's, you can't, it's totally different medium and yeah, it you, we cannot recreate, maybe if you're doing an audio book and you're throwing in the sound effects and you have it in amazing narrator, but it's probably just best to avoid it. And I have to admit, my mind started wandering towards the end because yeah, once I figured it out and then they get into the, all the girly stuff in there, it was like, okay come on, let's get to the point people. So you know, even, and then I actually found myself wondering, I'm like okay 3d the elves, seven till the dorms, nine to people, why people get nine and only helps only got three cause there's less ELLs.

So you know, my mind is already like just trying to unpack something with numbers instead of fully listening to the war effects. So that's the problem with info dumps that can happen, that can happen. But one of course I think we also need to be mindful when we are listening to it. We are listening to it as writers. So how mine works a bit different, we automatically start analyzing it. Worse. The reader won't do that. They will just enjoy it. That's true. That is true. I mean I've ever seen ever since I started writing watching movies has also been broken for me because I cannot watch a movie without starting analyzing at my, sometimes my wife gets so annoyed with it, she's like, okay, so who is the killer?

And I say, well it's this and that person and she's laughing, be screaming at the screen, you know, plotting

Autumn (32m 40s): this character and Stoli though was Oh yeah, you just don't get me started about really horrible script. Writing

Jesper (32m 49s): yeah, yeah. So of course I think in all honesty we need to be mindful that, that we don't use stories as, as as readers. I mean we of course read us ourselves but but you do get into the habit of analyzing stuff w which you won't do if you're just a normal sort of reader. If I could put it like that

Autumn (33m 7s): you trying to think about just, you know, we're creating this for a reader, not for a reader who's also a writer. Cause you can never determine if people, you, how many books they've read. This could be their first ever novel, probably not. But you want to at least kind of consider who your ideal reader is and there are a reader, not a writer. So hopefully the next sort of pulling apart everything on you.

Jesper (33m 29s): Yeah. So maybe in terms of getting into how we can avoid, avoid info dumping a, I also actually wanted to mention another movie. Have you watched the inception with Leonardo DiCaprio?

Autumn (33m 41s): I think I have, but I can't remember. So it's not coming straight to the top of my mind, but I know the title,

Jesper (33m 49s): right? Yeah, it's a really, really good movie. Um, but I think even though it's a movie, uh, and again, I, I just said it was not at the same medium as a perk. I think it's still a good example to, to share, uh, information with the reader. I mean, how it does it well, because the concept of inception is quite complex. It's, it's these characters who are moving around in not just one dream but like multiple layers of dreams and you so you could dream within the dream to get the print stuff.

It's pretty complex. Um, yet, you know, when the movie takes us beginning you, you could start out by explaining all that stuff and probably the view as well as, as a reader of a book, we'll sort of tune out in the Lego. Okay. But we don't get any long explanations in the beginning of this movie of how this shared dreaming actually works. Instead they just start out with tension. So there's one character is telling another one how it's important to train your mind to not be vulnerable to idea theft.

So it's just this very brief dialogue and, and then bam, we are right into the story and we know that somebody can steal your secret thoughts through. She had dreams somehow and that's it. And then we just take it from there. And I think that's a good example.

Autumn (35m 6s): I think that's a good one. And if, if people like, uh, shows sensate sorta does the same thing. It's these groups of people, seven to eight individuals that basically can share, um, sort of minds and memories and actually, you know, actual present. They can basically be there and talking to people. It's almost like having your, you know, your best friend with you. They can just literally be there and in the same room, but to go from a new washer who doesn't know that too, learning that it's sort of, the characters are sort of growing and learning this and how it all works.

And they do a beautiful job that by the time you get to the end where you know, they're basically fighting a battle and there's other sensei, it's, and it's amazing that they, you know, you've gone from not doing thinking it's a normal world and that you might be losing your mind because something weird, you're starting to hear voices in your head to having a powerful group who takes down the enemy because you're actually eight individuals. It's amazing. And they do a wonderful job. There was never an info dump in it at all.

So that's another good example. If someone wants to look at a series. Yeah. Uh, probably a rule of thumb might be that you know that you need much less inflammation in the beginning of a story than you actually think in order to keep the reader engaged because you might naturally start thinking, well, okay, I need to explain this and then I also need to explain that because otherwise it won't make much sense, but in all honesty, the Rita won't need need to half of what you think they need because they will also build the, they will build a lot of the context in their own mind as they start reading and then you can sort of see it in the bits that they need to know as the story runs along rather than giving them paragraph upon paragraph at the start because it's really not necessary.

Yeah, I think that's, those are really my two. I have two rules with really writing an information and one is that you should never have two sentences of description or it's something that's non-action. Even history, two sentences. Any more than that strung together, stop. Just stop. It should all be threaded in the description, the history. It should be mixed in with the dialogue. It should be mixed in with action. You know, they're in a Tavern, whatever it is, you described them pacing across the wooden floor or the other patrons. You have other things going on. You don't need to just simply tell the reader that it's a 200 year old Tavern and it has wooden floors, you know, make the character's experience it so that the reader feels it through the characters.

So it should all be about showing. And the other big one is that you just need to, Oh, you know what, it just popped totally out of my mind. That's so funny. Anyway, I, you know, that's what I call with all the moving and everything else going on. But I think the other one, curiosity, that is what I was going to say. The problem with info dumps is you're killing curiosity. In fact, you're really making people board and what you want, especially at the beginning of the novel is curiosity. You know, you have action happening and you're not really explaining why it's working.

You know, you have a demon busting through a door and someone throws something at it that makes it evaporate. They know what happened, but they don't know why, and maybe they're going to be curious as to why this object could do this too. This poltergeists thing. That's perfect. The last thing you want to do is explain why it worked and why it was blessed by so-and-so. And this happened 300 years ago and turn it into this and there's this piece of this st in barked. Oh my God, that's so boring. You just want it to work.

So those first chapters, especially the last thing you want to do as an info dump, what you want to do is actually really be careful with your information and just Dole it out. So slowly so that the reader is curious. They want to know what else they're going to learn, what else is going to happen, and why is this all happening in working that makes them excited. So that's why info dumps at the beginning especially, can just kill that curiosity. You explain it all in the first five pages and they're like, okay, story's done.

I don't need the next 95% of the novel. Oh, well,

Jesper (39m 23s): yup. So I think maybe to summarize where we could say, don't confuse the written media with movies. It is not the same thing. Do not try to replicate what they're doing this and uh, find ways to share information with the Rita that aren't telling them what they need to know, but it's instead shit through the plot moving forward and character speaking to one another. So next Monday, autumn and I will share with social media networks we love the most for hiders.

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