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In a story I'm working on, at one point one of the main characters (also the POV character in this case) arrives at a new location which he has never been in before. This is the first mention of this location within this story, so the reader can also be assumed to be completely unfamiliar with the location.
Shortly after arriving, the POV character is looking around and noting, in this case, what the house he's entered is like on the inside. This results in a bit over half an A4 page of text where this character notes different aspects of the interior of the house.
Everything that the character notes is things that would be visible from where he's standing, so none of it seems unreasonable at a glance that he'd note; also, looking around to get a feel for the place you're in would be a fairly normal thing to do when you arrive in a new location. The things he notes, while not exactly Chekhov's rifle hanging on the wall, are relevant for setting the scene for much of the rest of the story. On the other hand, it does feel a bit like an infodump.
At what point does showing a character looking around and noting their surroundings go from "showing" or even "telling", to an infodump? What are good tricks to keep a legitimate "looking around" from becoming an infodump, when you can't break it up into, for example, one smaller room at a time?
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An info dump is a classification of a section of text with the characteristics that it imparts information that to the reader about a world/setting/occurance/thing that the reader might not otherwise understand. Info Dumps are neither malign nor benign, they just are info dumps.
The colloquial negative connotation comes from sections of text which are info-dumps and interrupt the plot or pacing of the novel or threaten to break the immersion of the reader in the story.
The point at which you've crossed the above line is the point at which your reader becomes distracted, bored, lost or confused in respect to the things that are happening. This is a subjective point that will vary by audience. A scientific audience is more likely to ride along with your character's description of the laws of the universe than middle-school grade level audience is.
Know your audience, and toggle accordingly. Some useful spectrum to consider would be: internal-external, active-passive, show-tell, exposition-acted or brief-comprehensive.
As a general rule, you want to tend towards brief & active info-dumps where the information is imparted in the general course of things happening. Show & Tell are weird targets as "Showing" something is expansive, but immersive; and seems to be the opposite of brief, where as "Telling" contracts story length. If you're looking at those "spectrums" and asking, "aren't some of those things the same thing?" the answer is yes, but they provide another angle.
One of the questions to be asked first is why is the character there? Someone just arriving at a new place for a business chat with the occupant is not going to observe the place the same way an investigator is looking at a potential crime scene or a someone checking out their friend's new digs is going to.
If the character is there primarily to talk to the occupant about something where the location isn't relevant, you can slip details into the conversation about what the POV happens to notice as the conversation goes on. If someone is there and the occupant is showing them around, then it would be the occupant pointing out the stuff, and the POV perhaps noticing other things as the mini-travalogue goes on.
If the POV is there as an investigator, then there's a logical reason why they'd methodically examine the room. If someone was writing my thought processes during a fire investigation, they'd see a very systematic approach describing what was being seen.
Info dumping is putting in too much information that bogs down the story. How much is too much depends on a lot of factors, including writing style and genre and PoV.
Example:
As was customary in the Holy Roman Empire in the late first century BC, the courtyard was surrounded by Roman cement, made from the ash of Mount Vessuvius, and plastered white. The tops were.
Info dumping, here, means giving details I, as a reader, have no reason to possibly care about. Do I care if that was customary? Or that it was customary just in that century? No, not in the least. Now, same scene, more showy about how the character's eyes take in their surroundings.
The garden was perhaps sparse, but the walls gave her the sense of privacy she often found lacking in the rest of the settlement. Honestly, father should know better than to drag his daughter out into his campaigning.
Still. Though the barracks was lacklustre compared to the grandeur of Rome, little comforts like the arches and the familiar Roman architecture helped anchor her in her Roman identity, as opposed to... wherever she now finds herself.
Barbarians, those Gauls. Though that was no concern of hers.
Through showing, the astute reader could perhaps pin an era to the scene. Why drop in years and dates, that isn't how people tend to think. Not unless they are keeping a Captain's Log (insert date in your best Kirk voice). Maybe you could have women gossiping about the latest goings-on in Rome, famous events, assassinations, stuff that those who know about the time period know about and can date for themselves. Dating it is telling, speaking of the event is showing. Which works, depends entirely on how you mean to portray the scene.
Now let's compare what a general of the Roman Legions might notice?
He didn't salute the soldiers standing at attention, nor did he care to. The saluted him, that was enough. Their armor wasn't polished, though--he'd have to speak to his future son-in-law about the ragtag fools that would soon be guarding his daughter.
Strolling through the arch, he ignored the servants going about their business. Up the three stone stairs, and through the wooden door. Into the sitting room, ignoring the seating and the lace foolishness he never cared for.
"Brutus! We must speak!" he bellowed, his words reverberating through the stone walls. No matter the fancy whitewashing or whatever fluff they used, stone was unforgiving, be it to voices that echoed off it, or someone's face being smashed into it.
What he notices is telling for his character. How he describes it even more so. If you put a historian that has wet dreams about that era in that room, he'd do what any historian would do: gush about all the details, and likely info dump the heck out of it. But a man who's more concerned with training men and wielding the Roman Battalion under his command as if a sword? He won't care much about the frills, as is evident in the scene, no?
I think it feels unnatural for a character to spend so much time info-dumping - unless there's a reason for it and/or is part of their character. Then, it can further the plot and/or reveal character,
Sherlock Holmes or someone on the spectrum (The Good Doctor) might do this, and showing them do it reveals their character - though I think it's usually only shown when it makes sense for the narrative, with a motivation to investigate.
But, perhaps it could be nerves, suspense, trying to distract themselves, looking for something specific etc. These character and plot points make the info-dump actually move the story forward.
I think: make it seem like the infodump is an excuse for a scene, not that the scene is an excuse have an infodump.
Anf if you make the scene about something other than the infodump, it obscures the significance of Chekhov's rifle.
I may be rehashing what's already answered, but I agree with the answers that point towards describing the objects as how they relate to the characters and their reactions to the described objects.
Find some symbolism with each important object. They don't need to be big symbols, but they mean something in some way. I am thinking along the terms of chekhov's gun.
Why is this detail included? Why does this object exist? What does it mean for the character, setting or the plot? Just because it is there doesn't mean it is worth mentioning (at least at that moment in the story.)
I tend to get bored and skim over long descriptions unless they appear useful, help set up the scene, the mood and the character.
An example in my rough draft, I'm working on a scene with my soldier character coming into to his room after his near fatal injury. I could go on and on about everything on his desk, placement of his bed, or books on his shelf, but I decided to focus on the unfinished projects (wooden children's toys) as a symbol to show his softer nature and an alternative life he could be pursuing, but pushed aside (symbolized by him having the plans for completing a toy butterfly's wings buried under a stack of battle related papers.)
There are a few other things in his room that become symbols. Maybe I overthink it when it comes to symbols and objects, but I find it fun that way. Each thing hopefully pulls its weight.
I also enjoy reading books where there's action taking place with the description. I'm reading a book where there are lots of bookshelves in the setting, but the focus is not on the books but finding a stray cat the POV character found that is hiding, thus books are being thrown about and littered on the floor. The next day when someone comes in to adopt the cat, they find the mess and react to to the shock of seeing what looks like a bomb dropped on the place. So, if action can occur in the scene, then all the better. If not then go for what it means for the character or the plot.
Turn the infodump into an investigation, revealing the owner of the space.
I think one technique is to be NOT just looking. +1 DPT for lengthening to personal connections, so I will talk about seeking insight into the owner of the setting. Give your MC a reason to be paying so much attention, a desire to understand a person.
Note how the fictional Sherlock Holmes always gathers an enormous amount of information and personality from the observation of a crime scene setting. This is usually told in retrospective dialogue, but in fiction, a similar attention to detail, incongruity, what is new and what is old, what is recently used and the layer of dust that implies something is seldom touched, what is grimed by cigarette smoke, what is sentimental and what is utilitarian, may or may not provide insight into the owner, but the attempt to understand can be quite plausible.
This same "investigation" can also serve as first-impressions character building for the owner of the space, a way of showing their character without them being there or taking any action at all. The reader learns something if your MC counts seven magazines folded as if half read, one of them over a year old. Is it research? The subsequent find of a half-completed model of airplane suggests it is not, they just put some things aside, for whatever reason, intending to return but never do.
Then your room-owning character can start in media res with all their quirks, e.g. in the example I gave interrupting themselves or veering off topic. The reader already knows something about them and the quirks do not feel forced or implausible.
One alternative is to "postpone and dilute". It is in fact likely that a very small amount of all the infodump is needed to get the scene running. Add the other elements as you go.
To think of a parallel, think of looking at a painting. Mona Lisa, for example.
At the first pass one may describe it as a smiling woman holding her hands. Some action goes on, and there is a second pass: the woman is still holding her hands, but now we notice the smile, the puffy cheeks, the wit in the eyes, and the natural landscape in the back.
More action goes on, and there is a third pass: the woman is still there, but not the veil that covers the hair becomes apparent, as well as the waterfall in the background, and so long.
We could have dumped a pixel-by-pixel description of the painting, but that is not natural. Give it in layers. Give time to each layer to become familiar, and move to the next layer of details. Refrain from telling everything at once, and dilute it throughout the story.
Focus on the character's reactions in that moment, given his intention and state of mind as he enters that environment.
Different characters would likely attend to different details, and would react differently to a given detail.
The same character, entering the same space with a different intention or state of mind, would react differently, and to different details.
Focus on what the character reacts to, and on the reaction. Focusing on the reaction helps to make the details not merely information, but also characterization and plot. It's characterization because the reaction comes partly from the character's history. It's plot because the reaction comes party from the character's intentions in the moment.
If that's still too much, let the strength of the character's reactions guide what to include and what to exclude.
If it's a character the reader hasn't seen, or a place the reader hasn't seen, it's not unusual to have 500 words or more of the character reacting to the surroundings.
Again, if you focus on reaction, you end up with way more than an inventory of what's there.
Consider lengthening it rather than cutting or curtailing it.
Infodump Example:
"There was a red sofa, and the pillows were hand stitched and
festooned with red posies, The picture on the wall was hand stitched
as well, and an area rug on the hardwood used the same color scheme.
The owner entered from the back of the house, dressed in a red frock.
In fact, he realized now, the walls were a pale shade of red, and
roses bloomed profusely just outside the window. What is this, the
house of blood?"
^ There is a fair amount of home decorating information there. Not much showing. You can draw it out by interweaving showing, perhaps something like below. The idea is that while less is often more, sometimes more is more. (Warning: The below is thrown together, too purple, and still telly).
More than info dump example:
"There was a red sofa, with a depression on one side. It reminded him
of his mother's king-size bed, sunk on one side from years of
widowhood, like the weight of her grief had slowly pushed her side of
the mattress into submission. He wondered if the sofa in front of him had a similar
story to tell. Maybe so, because the pillows, hand-stitched and
festooned with red posies, held the vestiges of dinge along the edges,
as though any handwringing a person might do on that sofa invariably
sucked the cushions in, too.
The picture on the wall was hand stitched, just like the pillows, and
even the pattern was the same. He wondered if they were a match set.
Seemed hard to imagine, since the home owner had no friends, no
family, and no time for hobbies (and very little patience for tasks
that could be more efficiently accomplished by machine.). Why would
Mrs. Smith have hand stitched decor? It was an odd detail. He spent a
moment committing the pattern to memory, just in case.
An area rug on the hardwood used the same color scheme. In fact, he
realized now, even the walls were a pale shade of red, and red roses
bloomed profusely just outside the window. What is this, a house of
blood? The grime on the pillows took on a sinister hue and he began
to regret his decision to come to this house.
The owner returned from the back of the house, dressed in long-sleeved
red frock. He gasped, for the red was not the frock, but rather the
woman's skin, showing through a translucent fabric.
He made a mad dash for the door but ..."
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