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McAnally's (The Community Pub) => Author Craft => Topic started by: Lord Rae on May 04, 2012, 04:00:05 AM
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Any suggestions on how to tackle the induction of someone into a secretive community/group including explaining rules, and training without it being a huge info dump?
I've been racking my brain trying to come up with a clever way to do it or to hold information back but it seems incredibly convoluted compared to just telling someone what's going on, what's expected of them and then their training with new and clever weapons?
The dreaded info dump rears it's head each time.
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I got nothing....
Secret societies and organizations are by their nature, secret. Information is utterly important and they would only give info to their inductees all at once.
Unless you had a plot-device that could say wipe the MC's memory and introduce the secret society a little at a time.
That is of course NOT using the tired B-Plot series of flashbacks to the initiation that happened earlier chronologically in the story but is present later linearly.
That's all I got.
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I think it would depend on how and why they are being inducted into the secret society. It could be critical for the audience to understand every nuance and detail or you might be able to just hit a few high points and move on or anything in between. It would depend on when it happens in the story. If it's at the beginning you might give a lot of detail as long as it's not too dull. You could also give some parts and fill in more details later. If it's at the end then you could sprinkle details about what's coming throughout the book (by observations of other inductions or someone giving them hints of what is to come). If it's the high point of the story you might break it up into pieces or you might just give the whole detailed ceremony while it's happening. Maybe have a humorous internal monologue to break things up or a whispered conversation among inductees.
It's very hard to know how to approach it without knowing a little more about how it fits into the story and whether the story itself is serious or humorous, first or third person, etc. Also are you talking about some of the real secret societies or is this a secret society specifically created for this story?
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Well 'hidden' is probably the wrong word as people know of the group, but they know nothing of the internal workings of the organization. It's not a real society from our world. And the plan is for 3rd person limited with a 3 or 4 main points of view. That allows me to get around some of the issues by using certain chapters or characters to give the society time to explain things "off camera" without it being too boring and so I don't have to lay out every detail.
I just don't want the main character to end up being forced to ask the wrong questions so that I can keep things hidden and not lay it out all at once. I want to be able to train someone in magic, strange weapons etc without the reader having to sit through all the lessons and safety warnings. But I can't skip it completely or move on to when the character is an old expert for story and pacing reasons. While I'm sure that Jim could make every lesson Harry ever had interesting I have no such faith in myself and I'm sure even Jim wouldn't write a book entirely about Harry's early years with Justin.
Essentially if someone finds the keys to a nuclear weapon (or the magical equivalent) and then someone in authority has to train that person in its use they aren't going to be cryptic or withhold vital info from that person. Sage Yoda knowledge would be too dangerous and it would annoy me (and anyone reading it I think) if they did because the reasoning would purely be because I was avoiding Info Dump.
The protagonist has read lots of books and has a fair amount of knowledge of the world and his father is in the group in question but he mostly knows of the group through rumor and gossip and not anything his father has told him first hand.
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From what you are telling me it sounds like you could have the main character get all the training but only hit the high points for the reader. Look at how JK Rowling handled what in some respects is very similar to what you are doing. Obviously there are differences but you have a person with no knowledge of magic suddenly finding that they are part of a magical society and having to learn the ropes. Of course in her stories the training is the story where it sounds like you just want the training to be the beginning of the story. Give the introduction or overview of the training plus two or three interesting anecdotes about the training to give the reader a feel for what's going on. The anecdotes will also give you an opportunity for some sleight of hand as you give some specific information while seeming to just give an example of the life of a mage in training.
This is not the only way to tell this. Much can be learned by conversation among people in the book. If you do this be sure to avoid talking heads unless you can, like Jim with Bob, turn the trope on its head and have fun with it. You can do some of it in flashback. You can have the main character find some of the information on his or her own. (Reading an old book or scroll, etc.) You can use any combination of these things.
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Secret societies and organizations are by their nature, secret. Information is utterly important and they would only give info to their inductees all at once.
Um, why ?
I can totally believe inductees getting information a little at a time because of it taking a while for them to demonstrate trustworthiness and talent (at whatever the society does) to progress through the ranks and learn more stuff.
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Um, why ?
I can totally believe inductees getting information a little at a time because of it taking a while for them to demonstrate trustworthiness and talent (at whatever the society does) to progress through the ranks and learn more stuff.
This. Have you seen the movie Wanted? The main character gets inducted into a secret society and the first half of the movie is him getting little snippets of information little by little. First he's introduced to the big players, then after a while he finds out who they are.............what they do.........why they do it..........how they do it...........each space I leave essentially being moments of trials for the character to prove himself.
I would definately agree that it's believable to have a character learn about a society a little at a time.
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Um, why ?
I can totally believe inductees getting information a little at a time because of it taking a while for them to demonstrate trustworthiness and talent (at whatever the society does) to progress through the ranks and learn more stuff.
exactly. The mushroom treatment. Unless they grew up in the family and you've watched them and known them for years, you aren't going to dump all your super duper secrets into the hands of a potential unknown. That's how secret organizations get penetrated by other secret organizations.
Do the slow reveal. You are grubs, all you need to know is you don't know anything. If you want to join our great and super duper society, you have to act without knowledge. As you grow in trustworthiness you will be inducted further and further into the great mysteries of our craft. etc.
The Deposed King
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is it me or is it rely bad that i did not think but just wrote the whole little bits as the main chr lurns more about her abilaties but never rely did big info dumps just let it unravle as she gets older and did not have a big plane on how just did the info that is relivent to the plote at the perticula time?
maybe i should have writen a plane for it but it seems to have worked so far
i mainly hate writing big info dumps and avoid them if posible trying to revile as little at one time as posible
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is it me or is it rely bad that i did not think but just wrote the whole little bits as the main chr lurns more about her abilaties but never rely did big info dumps just let it unravle as she gets older and did not have a big plane on how just did the info that is relivent to the plote at the perticula time?
maybe i should have writen a plane for it but it seems to have worked so far
i mainly hate writing big info dumps and avoid them if posible trying to revile as little at one time as posible
the dreaded info dumps are to be avoided if at all humanly possible.
the Deposed King
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honestly its compleatly by acserdent but i have put things in the univers that means you can not get lots of info at once just randomly Deposed King
and it was not till i read this thread i even relised that i have done this lol
its because info dumps are just no fun to write so i don't
witch means you have to get inventive with how you revial information some times but that is half the fun i think ;D
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I've been told that if you want to read how someone adjusts to being exposed to
a totally alien society - read, of all things, Shogun.
The clash/contrast between East and West is intense.
You could probably also use it as a guide for someone being initiated into a secret society.
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the dreaded info dumps are to be avoided if at all humanly possible.
Unless you can make them so cool that they are fun in and of themselves. I really like Neal Stephenson's approach, for example; there are a couple of pages in Cryptonomicon that are an info-dump on the character in question's preferred way of eating breakfast cereal that are really amazingly funny.
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honestly its compleatly by acserdent but i have put things in the univers that means you can not get lots of info at once just randomly Deposed King
and it was not till i read this thread i even relised that i have done this lol
its because info dumps are just no fun to write so i don't
witch means you have to get inventive with how you revial information some times but that is half the fun i think ;D
I am inclined to think a large part of the reason why so much genre fiction is either about strangers coming to new places, or kids growing up and going out into the world, is because those are situations that provide legitimate reason for one character to ask another "how does this bit work ?" and get an answer that informs the reader also.
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okay that dose sounds amusing
oh yes exsept when the grown ups don't tell the chrarictor any thing and then it gets intresting and you have to be inventive and use lots of diffrent ways of getting information
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the dreaded info dumps are to be avoided if at all humanly possible.
the Deposed King
I had a hard time dancing around how to avoid one of those. Ended up using a briefing, because in that setting that's exactly how the information would have realistically been disseminated to the other characters. Plus it gave me a chance to work in their voices and personalities, concerns and issues. But it's not something that'll work in every setting or be used too frequently.
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I had a hard time dancing around how to avoid one of those. Ended up using a briefing, because in that setting that's exactly how the information would have realistically been disseminated to the other characters. Plus it gave me a chance to work in their voices and personalities, concerns and issues. But it's not something that'll work in every setting or be used too frequently.
I'm finding the great thing about a first-person narrator who is explicitly writing this stuff down is that a) she's keen to fill in the explanations and b) I can get a bunch of characterisation and worldbuilding in by the things she skips over as obvious to her, and the things she explains as totally weird to her and her assumed audience that a present-day reader will not think are weird at all. If anything, I'm having to restrain her a bit on that, but she can usually be diverted into how nowhere she goes ever makes a decent cup of coffee. (In the place she's in now, she complains that they serve it bitter, uncarbonated, and worst of all, hot. I think that sets up what her default expectation actually is better than pausing for three paragraphs to fill in the preceding 2300 years' history of coffee-drinking.)
Some bits of first-person stuff with the right narrator are so much easier than third person I'm surprised it's legal.
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I did one story - and I need to find it again. Hopefully it didn't get thrown out
in the great move - where the protagonist is a news reporter - so the story is told from
her rather dry point of view and an info dump is, in essence, part of what she does.
Though I try not to do big info dumps. They'll just bore the socks off your readers.
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I'm finding the great thing about a first-person narrator who is explicitly writing this stuff down is that a) she's keen to fill in the explanations and b) I can get a bunch of characterisation and worldbuilding in by the things she skips over as obvious to her, and the things she explains as totally weird to her and her assumed audience that a present-day reader will not think are weird at all. If anything, I'm having to restrain her a bit on that, but she can usually be diverted into how nowhere she goes ever makes a decent cup of coffee. (In the place she's in now, she complains that they serve it bitter, uncarbonated, and worst of all, hot. I think that sets up what her default expectation actually is better than pausing for three paragraphs to fill in the preceding 2300 years' history of coffee-drinking.)
Some bits of first-person stuff with the right narrator are so much easier than third person I'm surprised it's legal.
I can imagine. Haven't worked my way up to first person yet though. I'm still in the "learning exercise" part of the process. One thing I am having a great deal of fun doing is matching the language I use in the descriptions and such to the specific character who's the focus of the scene at the time, which seems to be an interesting method of demonstrating how they perceive and process things compared to other characters.
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I can imagine. Haven't worked my way up to first person yet though. I'm still in the "learning exercise" part of the process. One thing I am having a great deal of fun doing is matching the language I use in the descriptions and such to the specific character who's the focus of the scene at the time, which seems to be an interesting method of demonstrating how they perceive and process things compared to other characters.
Well I don't know that first person is increadibly hard. You just have to be a little in the guy/gal's head as you go along. For instance, with my Admiral Who, I just filtered most new experiences through Jason's paranoia or in some cases his feelings of superiority or inadequacy. Essentially he was always scheming.
You just have to remember to always be digressing after the dialogue, but at the same time it also has to be very much connected or else you wander too off the reservation.
The Deposed King
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ah i am curently trying first person it sorta is okay most of the time
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Thanks for the discussion. Totally got me over the hurtle and I'm pushing along again. :)
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I had a similar issue. My solution was to take the "need-to-know" approach, and slowly let the character in to see the pieces pertaining to him and his problem (or her and her problem, depending on which story I'm working on.)
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Thanks for the discussion. Totally got me over the hurtle and I'm pushing along again. :)
that is good
I like that feeling
speaking of i am going to go write now as i don't have to do anything ells till after tea ;D
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I am a fan of developmental Milestones. You structure the secret society in levels, and each level has a trial/test/moral that must be learned and overcome before the next level can be attempted. It would provide Ranks, a reason to dole out information in several smaller pieces, and draws the reader in more because they are, in theory, working toward a realization along with your character, rather than just having information thrown at them.
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That is really tough. I am struggling with that one also. I say break it up and try and do a few 'time warps.' Tell it in flash backs, memories, or like it is stuff the charater already knows because he is in the future. Hmmmmm. Not explaining right.....
Induction
First Glimps
Flash Forward a few weeks/ days/ months
Flash Backs As Nessisary
Use conversations between people so readers can glean information. You don't need to say everything upfront.
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That is really tough. I am struggling with that one also. I say break it up and try and do a few 'time warps.' Tell it in flash backs, memories, or like it is stuff the charater already knows because he is in the future. Hmmmmm. Not explaining right.....
Induction
First Glimps
Flash Forward a few weeks/ days/ months
Flash Backs As Nessisary
Use conversations between people so readers can glean information. You don't need to say everything upfront.
That can certainly work, but it an also be a nightmare to keep things straight doing that way; needs a fair bit of organising to make sure you don't lose track of your continuity.
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Yep. That's what outlines are good for. It is still a headache though.
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Yep. That's what outlines are good for. It is still a headache though.
I tried to do a flashback scene, or reverse order something. But when I went through and edited I just moved it back where it should have been chronologically. I trimmed and puffed and pasted.
So I don't have the kind of helpful imput I would like.
best of luck!
Always follow the dream,
The Deposed King