The Dresden Files > DF Spoilers
New short story in process
Rasins:
--- Quote from: groinkick on July 20, 2017, 08:27:53 PM ---If it was a story about Harry going for ice cream, that's all that it would be about. The info dump would be like if while going for ice cream, Harry was reminded of when he and Eb had went for ice cream, and you learn more about their relationship. Or maybe while going for ice cream, Thomas drops by and talks to Harry about what's going on in his life... That's my idea of an info dump. Information given that isn't directly connected to the little story unfolding.
--- End quote ---
You mean like ... it's a story about a trip to the zoo. They see lions there. DId you know that the female lions are the ones who do all the hunting. and ...
Then you go on about different things about lions.
Is that an info dump?
Shecky:
--- Quote from: Rasins on July 21, 2017, 07:01:33 PM ---You mean like ... it's a story about a trip to the zoo. They see lions there. DId you know that the female lions are the ones who do all the hunting. and ...
Then you go on about different things about lions.
Is that an info dump?
--- End quote ---
No, that's just irrelevant background. An infodump is when story-necessary details are all lumped into one big delivery instead of integrated organically into the story where they would naturally occur (as "natural" as an artificially created story can be, that is). One of the old phrases in the genre writing community is "As you know, Bob," which mimics the typical start to such an infodump: one character explaining to another things they already know, purely for the purpose of delivering the information/background to the reader.
This is, of course, far too broad a generalization; good writers very often find ways of dumping a lot of story-necessary information at once without resorting to hamfisted "As you know, Bob" approaches, and nobody honestly thinks of those as infodumps. It's really a question of how deftly or clumsily the massive flow of information is woven into the effect of an organically developing plot/scene.
Kindler:
--- Quote from: Shecky on July 21, 2017, 07:22:05 PM ---No, that's just irrelevant background. An infodump is when story-necessary details are all lumped into one big delivery instead of integrated organically into the story where they would naturally occur (as "natural" as an artificially created story can be, that is). One of the old phrases in the genre writing community is "As you know, Bob," which mimics the typical start to such an infodump: one character explaining to another things they already know, purely for the purpose of delivering the information/background to the reader.
This is, of course, far too broad a generalization; good writers very often find ways of dumping a lot of story-necessary information at once without resorting to hamfisted "As you know, Bob" approaches, and nobody honestly thinks of those as infodumps. It's really a question of how deftly or clumsily the massive flow of information is woven into the effect of an organically developing plot/scene.
--- End quote ---
It's one of the reasons Bob was created, as far as I recall, as related by Jim. A good example in the story is Bob explaining the different types of werewolves in Fool Moon. It's justified within the story (Harry is asking him about it, and Bob talks for a few pages about them), so it avoids the kind of thing like, "As you know, Harry, there are four types of werewolves..."
Some like to use it to shoehorn characterization into a short scene. Christopher Nolan is bad about that. Watch Interstellar—way at the beginning, Michael Caine starts waxing poetical about how Matthew McCoughenaheralery was a brilliant engineer, and how he's frustrated that he was born into the wrong age and forced to go into agriculture, and so on. It overlaps with "show, don't tell"-related concepts (where this is telling rather than showing), similar to statements that start with "That makes me feel..."
Regular infodumps are possibly best exemplified by The Architect scene from the end of The Matrix Reloaded. He provides information relevant to the story and the universe in which it is set, explains a bunch of stuff, and then the story moves on.
SintraEdrien:
Infodump: see David Weber
teehee
:p
Quantus:
--- Quote from: Kindler on July 24, 2017, 04:03:59 PM ---It's one of the reasons Bob was created, as far as I recall, as related by Jim. A good example in the story is Bob explaining the different types of werewolves in Fool Moon. It's justified within the story (Harry is asking him about it, and Bob talks for a few pages about them), so it avoids the kind of thing like, "As you know, Harry, there are four types of werewolves..."
--- End quote ---
Heheh, ya. His writing instructor warned him not to let Bob's character become purely a vehicle for exposition, something commonly referred to as a "talking head". So Jim went and made him a literal talking head. ;D
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