PART 2 –INFO DUMPS

Okay, you should now have a feeling about how to run through your existing novel and help blend the line expository with action. Let’s move onto the tougher expository: The huge info dumps that really should be weaved into the story.

Like I said before… these really need to be worked on at the outline stage. There are elements of your character and plot that should be offered to reader slowly throughout the novel, and this should be broken down and planned on during your structure phase. A little bit about her love of dogs here, a funny odor that surrounds her here, the fact that she woofs sometime sin her sleep there… and ¾ through the book, oh right, she’s a werewolf. That makes sense! Not… normal girl, normal girl, normal girl… Grrr, roar, I’m a warewolf! Because: blah blah blah blah.

But there are going to be times when you’re reading your ms, and you realize that you totally info-dumped and it’s a huge, throbbing paragraph of all this info that reads like an encyclopedia. So… what can you do? You break it down… and find numerous places for a little bit at a time.

Example 1

Her hair whipped her face, as she stood upon the cliff’s edge watching the ship slowly approach the harbor. She wore little, just a fringed skirt over her legs and moccasins on her feet… her culture allowed it, being  Powhatan meant staying cool in the hot summers of Virginia. Her face painted with red striped markings and her chest garnished with bone beads, she had taken a break from gathering berries for the stew her tribe would cook all day long, adding to it where they were able. Her people were peaceful, worshiping Ahoe, the creator god through tradition, but would war if forced. The Indian girl standing on the cliff that day felt the darkness of war within the ship’s shadow as it lumbered slowly towards the beach.

Let’s break it down:

1. Can you add certain info elsewhere?  Being Powatan and living in Virginia (I feel) can be offered elsewhere.

2. “Cooking all day long” – I get that it is the traditional way the Powatan’s cooked stew, but maybe this line could be scrubbed with a simple adjective. Ie: she had taken a break from gathering berries for the tribal stew.

3. Could their form of worship be offered as dialogue, in a conversation she has with a friend or family member

4. And could their peacefulness be witnessed instead of told.

Example 2

Jenny was from a broken home. Her mother left when she was 3, and her father had the neighbor babysit her soon after and never came back. She was put into foster care, but proved a difficult child and was shipped from one home to the next, finally winding up permanently in a group home at the ripe old age of 8. Which only hardened her more of course, as nasty fights and group torture were a form of entertainment and even currency at Bellville Home For Girls.  Run by a group of apathetic and borderline-seedy priests, Jenny learned quickly it was her and her alone she had to focus on, to take care of.  She started fighting to win if pounced, fighting dirty, nasty, horribly, and she quickly learned NEVER to regret it. The one time her kind instinct popped up and she held back, stopped hitting for blood, and tried to speak instead, she was almost beaten to death by another 11 year old.

1. Obviously, cut broken home.

2. We can hear that she hopped around, from the kids in the home.

3. See group home at 8 when she arrives, and witness the savageness of it.

4. See kindness, or hear about it.

So basically, if we want to be hardcore about this paragraph, it can be bought down to this:

“Her mother left when she was 3, and her father had the neighbor babysit her soon after and never came back”