Setting is the location and time in which the book’s story takes place. A novel’s setting can include geography and time period, and can take place on Earth (past, present, or future) or in a made-up world.
A novel’s setting is one of the elements that makes up an author’s writing style: Some authors describe their book’s setting thoroughly, whereas other authors are light on the details. Other authors create “infodumps” by providing too much information all at once. Infodumps are where too much information is shared at once, overwhelming the reader and making the reading experience not as enjoyable as it should be.
It’s not always easy for an author to be able to pinpoint whether they have an infodump (or several) in their novel. Often, it’s difficult for the author to tell on their own—most authors are blind to the flaws in their writing. But luckily, there’s a question authors can ask themselves to better determine if they have infodumps in their writing. Later, we’ll discuss how to avoid infodumps, and where they’re most likely to show up in your novel. Read on!
What is an Infodump?
Infodumps are where the author shares too much information all at once—typically several paragraphs or more. It can be backstory, history, or world-building details, such as the type of government/monarchy or types/races of people in sci-fi/fantasy books. It can be describing your character’s personality or physical appearance.
It’s described as an infodump because it’s shared inappropriately (such as at an inappropriate time or inappropriate length) and it slows the pacing. Essentially, it’s dumping too much information on the reader at once. Infodumps typically occur in your book’s first few chapters.
How to Tell When You’re Writing an Infodump
Often, it’s difficult for the author to tell on their own—most authors are blind to the flaws in their writing (hence why the savviest authors hire a book editor). Infodumps only occur when the author is sharing too much information that is not relevant to the reader at that point in the book.
There’s a delicate balance between sharing not enough information and sharing TOO MUCH information. You’ve shared too much information when readers start to gloss over the material.
So if readers are saying that your book is “boring” or that it didn’t grab their attention, you might have too much infodump on your hands.
The 1 Question to Ask TO AVOID INFODUMPS
You only need to ask yourself one question to determine which material is an “infodump”:
Is this information pertinent to your story RIGHT NOW?
If it can wait, cut it now and integrate it later, when it becomes relevant to the story.
How to Fix Infodumps
To avoid info dumps: Keep your focus on the front story. You can integrate details and backstory, but you should frequently come back to the front story and what the character is doing.
Is there already an area (or several) with infodumps? If you need to reduce the amount of world-building in a particular section, you can always cut material from an info-heavy section and integrate it later in the book. Books tend to be info-heavy at the beginning, so this is usually a particularly troublesome area to keep an eye on.
Don’t be afraid to cut down on info-heavy sections. One of the biggest detractors of a book’s pacing is too much oversharing of information. Once you cut material out, you can move the material to later in the book, delete it altogether, or repurpose it in a later book.
Book editor Kristen Hamilton is the owner and sole employee of Kristen Corrects, Inc., where she provides manuscript editing services for traditionally and self-publishing authors. Several authors whose books she has edited have won awards and have topped Amazon’s best sellers lists.
Reading is Kristen’s passion, so when the workday is over, she can usually be found curled up with a good book alongside her four cats. She loves watching cat videos and scary movies, eating pizza, teaching herself French, and traveling, and she is likely planning her next vacation. She lives outside of Boise, ID.