LTUE 2018 Avoiding the Infodump

Specific flavor of boredom in your reader.

Prince Caspian stops for whole chapters while things are explained to us. But it’s not boring. Same thing in The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe.

Two types of problems. Pacing or POV break.

The Horse and his Boy

Good POV feels natural. Focuses on what they are thinking about and worried about. Don’t do an “As you know”

Terraforming Mars - Game

Moon base games?

Show don’t tell.

Terry Pratchet - Voice

A natural history of Dragons.

POV can make some things easier.

Pacing

Make thre reader Crave more information
Make it fell natural through concrete details, multitasking, interweaving.

Don’t give the readers Broccoli before Dessert. They want desset before dessert. Give them just enough to keep them engaged.

Drip it out in pieces.

Multitaslking - Make sentences do work.

Interweaving - Split things up. Big paragraphs get skipped. Unless it’s the dessert paragraph and you’ve set it up right.

Sprinkle it in sentence by sentence.

SELF-EDITING - Go through and highlight

Writing your way into a scene - It’s okay.

You can put notes on the scene but don’t list them in the scene. Write your way into the scene. Where are the things that are just notes to me as an author. Sometimes it’s just the first few paragraphs of a scene.

Beta Readers

Is this something that is confusing or just something that you are intersted in.

Enough to understand what is happening in the moment. You don’t need to know thw whole story.

If someone is telling you that something is wrong, there is something wrong, but they are probably wrong about that is wrong.

Do they need to know more to be invested? Or are they just impatient.

Attach emotion to important information. Put it in there more than once.

LDS beta readers