Exposition & Info-Dumps vs. Local Colour

[The Curious Orange]

I'm hard at work editing my story. I'm trying to cut out all the exposition and info-dumps, as well as the scenes where characters take an awful lot of pages to do nothing at all.

The problem is, there's some awfully good writing in there. While I'm not afraid to "kill my babies", a lot of this stuff adds local colour, window dressing, if you will. The sort of stuff that gives verisimilitude to my world and makes it real.

So where do I draw the line? A lot of my early chapters involve characters going about their daily lives, describing the world around them, thinking about their lot, meeting other characters and having expository conversations with them, etc etc. If I cut this stuff out, the book is quicker and pacier, but also less rich and detailed. The characters become more immediate, but less well rounded.

Where should I draw the line? Opinions, please.

[JDP]

My two cents would be that unless an event or piece of dialogue is directly relevant to the plot or character development, hack it out mercilessly; try to get the relevant colour into the story through the bits that do need to be there. You'll probably find that your world is plenty rich enough anyway, and shows as much through the prose that's necessary.

Just my opinion.

[Peter Graham]

Hello Kurius Oranj,

In the interests of confusing you utterly, I think I'd give a different opinion to JDP. In straight genre, I agree that it's all about action. Characterisation is far less important than plot development. Look at Tolkien - with the possible exception of Gollum, there isn't a deep or well-rounded character in it. But it doesn't matter, because the book is led by the action.

By contrast, something like Frankenstein is character led. The book is much more about the characters and how they interact with what they have done and what they have created. The action is relatively slow and there is no need for an enormous heap of bodies at the end.

This is not to say that one is better than the other. But if we are going on a journey in your character's mind and development, then I for one want to know what they are like when they are not busy saving the world etc. The more window dressing the better, provides it takes us somewhere (even if somewhere is just a deeper understanding of our hero). I love realistic dialogue and 'real' interaction, making me one of only three people in the world who nowadays will admit to liking The Blair Witch Project.

If, however, the character is just the vehicle through which we see the action unfolding in the world at large, go with JDP's suggestion.

Regards,

Peter

[magician2magici]

well , for me , i think that any information that won't be used ever at the story shouldn't be existed from the beginning
i like to write everything that would be used next at any event o the story , even the slightest , ut to write things that won't benefit the story , won't be nice i guess..

also for me there's a way i use to take decisions at situations like , delete this dialogue or keep it ? i make usually two copies wjen i review my work , then at times i need to take such decisions , i delete what i want from one copy , then compare between both , what sounds right to do then i do , that's my way ..

[magician2magici]

sorry for my reply , but the edit button doesn't work

i just liked what peter said about action derived and character derived stories , really agree with that too..

regard..

el-saher>>

[Sapheron]

Put in as much as you want to. Send it to a publisher/agent. If they don't like it, you delete a bit more and resubmit it. Time consuming, perhaps, but it should work in the end.

[JDP]

Originally Posted by JDP

unless an event or piece of dialogue is directly relevant to the plot or character development, hack it out mercilessly

Originally Posted by Peter Graham

The more window dressing the better, provides it takes us somewhere (even if somewhere is just a deeper understanding of our hero).

Great news, Curious Orange, there's no need to be confused -- we're saying the same thing!

[Peter Graham]

Originally Posted by JDP

Great news, Curious Orange, there's no need to be confused -- we're saying the same thing!

..so we are.......

[Anne Lyle]

Originally Posted by Peter Graham

Look at Tolkien - with the possible exception of Gollum, there isn't a deep or well-rounded character in it. But it doesn't matter, because the book is led by the action.

Tolkien isn't exactly an action-fest either - he spent a lot of time on "local colour", i.e. describing all the wonderful landscapes he'd imagined. The books would have been a lot shorter - and probably less well-loved - if he'd stuck to the action.

Info-dumps are never good (except maybe short ones in a synopsis, where you don't have space for subtlety). But "local colour" scenes are staples of any genre set in an unfamiliar world, whether fantasy or SF or historical or whatever. The important thing is to ensure that those scenes are contributing to your story as a whole.

1. They should include conflict - even internal conflict within the PoV character is fine, as long as it isn't the sole conflict for chapter after chapter!

2. They should move the plot forward. Maybe your heroine receives an important letter/email/vidgram during afternoon tea/The Simpsons/zero-G training, or the bad guy takes a potshot at your hero whilst he's picking apples/showing people around the Smithsonian/trying to fix the sub-light engines. Anyway, you get the idea...

Sometimes opening scenes are just "throat-clearing" - you the writer getting to know the characters - and they need cutting, but with SF&F, sometimes you do need a bit of lead-in to orient the reader. It's a tricky balancing act!

[Anthony G Williams]

Originally Posted by Sapheron

Put in as much as you want to. Send it to a publisher/agent. If they don't like it, you delete a bit more and resubmit it. Time consuming, perhaps, but it should work in the end.

Will publishers or agents really be prepared to keep on looking through continuingly evolving versions of the same story? I suspect that would only be true if they said, "yes, we like this a lot, we'd just like you to trim it a bit..."

To address the main question: I have far more often been put off by excessive verbiage than I have been frustrated by the lack of description, if that's any guide. Deciding on what information is important to your story, and how best to insert this, is one of the key skills of a writer. I suggest that you pick up novels by the authors you like most and study them to see how they do it.

[Anne Lyle]

Originally Posted by Anthony G Williams

Will publishers or agents really be prepared to keep on looking through continuingly evolving versions of the same story? I suspect that would only be true if they said, "yes, we like this a lot, we'd just like you to trim it a bit..."

I agree - the last thing an agent wants is to be resent the same piece of work again and again with minor changes. I would suggest finding some beta-readers first and trying your work out on them. If they think it needs cutting, it definitely needs cutting!

[SJAB]

Originally Posted by Anthony G Williams

Will publishers or agents really be prepared to keep on looking through continuingly evolving versions of the same story? I suspect that would only be true if they said, "yes, we like this a lot, we'd just like you to trim it a bit..."

From what I have read on agents blogs, if they have said no, they don't want to see an a trimmed, revamped verison. If they request changes then that is another matter.

There is nothing to stop you sending out the trimmed-revamped verison to another agent. I have done that and had requests for a bigger chunk of the manuscript.

Edit;

But like Anne said, there is nothing better than a few trusted Beta Readers to help you through the editing stage.

[Rider of scaled wing]

Well, i've seen this done before and am planning on doing it myself.

Beyond having the actual story, they insert little things after the end of the actual story, like exerpts from fictional books or other information sources that could be found in the fictional world, giving a detailed description of things, species, peoples, places, or other things that make up that world. Sometimes i find those bits of info as engrossing as the story of the rest of the book.

[Anthony G Williams]

Originally Posted by Rider of scaled wing

Well, i've seen this done before and am planning on doing it myself.

Beyond having the actual story, they insert little things after the end of the actual story, like exerpts from fictional books or other information sources that could be found in the fictional world, giving a detailed description of things, species, peoples, places, or other things that make up that world. Sometimes i find those bits of info as engrossing as the story of the rest of the book.

yes indeed! My novel The Foresight War is concerned with an alternate WW2 which differs from the historical one in many ways, great and small (down to the equipment used). I didn't want to slow down the story so I dumped vast quantities of data on real vs historical people, real vs historical equipment, how the events differed etc, in a series of appendices which runs to 35 pages (about 10% of the book). You don't need to look at them to enjoy the story, but the data is all there if you're curious about separating fact from fiction.

[The Pelagic Argosy]

If you're a good tour guide, by all means, show us the sights. The important thing for me, as a reader, is to feel as if I'm in good hands.

But this begs the question...is your prose as good as you say it is? Is the excerpt you posted recently in the critiques section a good example of your writing style? Consider that your sentences tend to be long, intricate, and modifier heavy. You yourself used the term "purple prose." Local color is fine, but I think you need to present it in a more straightforward manner. You're making your readers work too hard.

I think you need to ask yourself, on a chapter by chapter basis...and on a sentence by sentence basis...what am I trying to do right now? Then do it in the simplest way possible.