Infodumping and How Not to Write Exposition

Exposition, in a work of fiction, refers to the techniques used to inform readers about the story. Writing good exposition can be the most difficult part of being an author. Good exposition will flow with the story, continuing to draw the reader in, instead of stopping the action for what amounts to a large authorial aside. This kind of bad exposition will distract the reader, decreasing her interest in the story.

The exposition dump, also called an "infodump," is a type of exposition technique that allows the author to put forth a lot of information at once, explaining many things about the story, characters, and world, but at the expense of stopping the story around it. For this reason, it is a bad exposition technique. Infodumping is a bigger problem in the fantasy and science-fiction genres because there is more information that needs to be explained, not just about the characters but about the world itself.

Infodumping can take several different forms. For science-fiction and fantasy, one of the most common ways to infodump is to introduce a character who is not familiar with the world at all. Because of this, the other characters must spend time explaining to her the way this fictional world works. When done well, this technique integrates the exposition smoothly into the story; when done poorly, it can feel forced, as if the characters are only discussing these things because the author requires it. This distracts the reader from the story.

Another form of infodumping is having characters attend a lecture or speech in which the speaker gives historical, scientific, and/or political background to the story. To the new writer this may seem like a clever technique, but it almost always sounds unrealistic because the speaker is addressing his speech to the reader, who does not know anything about the world, rather than to his audience, who do. Can you imagine, for example, a speaker at a conference of Korean War veterans beginning his speech by explaining what the Korean War was and why it was fought?

The most egregious form of infodumping is the "As You Know, Bob," as it is termed by the Turkey City Lexicon (a writing manual for sci-fi authors). This form of exposition involves characters telling each other things that they already know simply to inform the reader of it, often even using the phrase "As you know...." This is the laziest form of exposition, and the most unrealistic.

Good writers of exposition avoid infodumping entirely, instead revealing information bit by bit as it becomes relevant. For this you need a good editor, who can make sure that the story is comprehensive as it is first read and not just with the knowledge gained afterwards. It is much more difficult to write, but it will help the writer keep her readers' attention and maintain the story's believability.