Writing Mistakes Writers Make: Info Dumping

Everyone makes mistakes—even writers—but that's OK because each mistake is a great learning opportunity. The Writer's Digest team has witnessed many mistakes over the years, so we started this series to help identify them early in the process. Note: The mistakes in this series aren't focused on grammar rules, though we offer help in that area as well.

(Grammar rules for writers.)

Rather, we're looking at bigger-picture mistakes and mishaps, including the error of using too much exposition, neglecting research, or researching too much. This week's writing mistake writers make is info dumping.

Have you ever been reading a book and you’re suddenly overwhelmed with pages of exposition detailing a specific element of the world or a character’s backstory? How did it make you feel? Or perhaps a better question is, how long did it take for your mind to start to wander?

One of the most common pieces of feedback newer writers get is that they’ve engaged in info dumping. This term is specifically referencing when a writer puts a ton of—often—unnecessary information in one big clump, detracting from the main action of the story. It will make your book feel like a textbook instead of a story, and it usually causes readers to start disengaging.

But if it’s so bad to read, why is it so easy to write? It’s essentially a shortcut that writers take so they can get all the details onto the page and then move on to the “fun” part of the story. However, figuring out how to sprinkle these pieces instead of clumping them—though a learned skill—can be just as engaging in the writing process.

But how does one resist the urge to info dump?

When you hear “action,” you might be thinking of epic battles or car chases. This isn’t necessarily the case. Here, I just mean that instead of explaining how or why something is one way, we get that information in a scene with movement and dialogue.

Emily Henry is one of my favorite authors when it comes to this kind of action. For example, in her contemporary romance Book Lovers, the preface is a small amount of backstory with a full scene between the main romantic interests. We not only get introduced to their characters but they get formally introduced to each other. The first chapter opens several years later, so without this initial meeting, we would need to receive this information another way—explanation from the narrator, dialogue, flashbacks, etc.

This is not to say that every book should have a preface outlining what exactly is going on (if you’ve ever seen the movie Avatar, I always marvel at the amount of info dumping we get through voice-over at the start of that film. It’s basically a massive info dump at the start of the movie!). But it’s to show that action—two people sitting down to a failed lunch meeting—can give a lot of information about those people and their relationship that will help the reader understand the characters better later on.

This is especially important for genre books where we might need some help understanding some pieces of the world to get the story’s stakes. But we might not need to have every tiny thing explained to us—especially through dialogue.

A great example of this comes from the third episode of “The Last of Us” (minor spoilers ahead!). If you’re not familiar with this post-apocalyptic show based on video games of the same name, an older man named Joel is tasked with the protection of a 14-year-old girl, Ellie, in a world devastated by a fungal pandemic. In this episode, Ellie is asking Joel questions about what life used to be like since she’s only known this post-pandemic world. When they come across a massive ditch full of human bones and other items, we get this exchange:

This is a short dialogue exchange that gives us a lot of context for what life was like at the start of this pandemic, as well as what life is like currently. Ellie, though growing up in this world, knows almost nothing about what happened leading up to and immediately after Outbreak Day. And while we could get huge chunks of dialogue from Joel about every detail, we don’t need it—this exchange is powerful in an emotional way, as we see Ellie’s understanding of her world expand, and it’s also useful for the viewers.

While this is true for the dialogue in your novel, it’s also true for the exposition. If we need to understand why, for example, a post-apocalyptic government is so corrupt, we don’t need pages and pages of history and political knowledge; instead, you can show us dialogue between people buying and selling food and medical supplies on the black market, discussing the lack of proper housing, and other day-to-day conversations.

While these are only two examples of when writers fall into the trap of info dumping, they’re easy ones to spot. The next time you go through your work-in-progress, double-check these areas to see if there are some very big chunks of exposition or dialogue that hold information that can be delivered to readers in another way. It could also help to have a beta reader who will point out these specific instances if you’re having trouble spotting them yourself!

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