: Re: How to avoid the 'magic explanation' info dump in Fantasy novels In the second book of his Inheritence Cycle, Christopher Paolini makes the grievous error of landing his main character in the

Good question. I'm tossing and turning over a one-and-a-half page info dump at the end of my first chapter (psychiatric drama). There's no way anybody gets it if it's not explained, right?

There's only so much random dialogue you can propagate before you just have to go for it. You can do it in bits and pieces like The Will and The Word from Eddings' Belgariad, or you can lay it out all at once like Morpheus in The Matrix to Neo. Movies are time limited, so it makes sense to just get it out of the way after a cool, mind-boggling action scene.

Books can flow, and transitions should be smooth. (I have my protagonist do a bit of daydreaming about the wonders of modern medicine before I not-ever-so-briefly describe the draconian past. I guess it's smooth, but still.)

Finish writing your book. Then decide if there's anything unnecessary from your info dump. Does the reader really need it? All of it? Really? Are you sure? Then include it. If you get to the agent and publisher phase, this is one of the things they will simply tell you: more, less, or just right.

(I'm including my info dump with my manuscript, but piling up rejection letters is unnerving--no matter how many times you play the game.)

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: Re: How to avoid the 'magic explanation' info dump in Fantasy novels In the second book of his Inheritence Cycle, Christopher Paolini makes the grievous error of landing his main character in the

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