No, not that kind. Information dumps. Pages upon pages of information. History, facts, theories, everything.
How do you know when too much is just that, too much, OR when you don't bring enough to it?
I read a couple essays, but I am curious what you guys think.
Clearly the story is the most important part and I've sort of developed this running rule, if it doesn't move the story, it doesn't exist. Head authority and back stories and all those other things are great, but too much can make a story stall or stop. Not enough (especially in speculative or fantasy genres) can make people feel lost. I have started scattering my stuff around. A comment here, a conversation there. Maybe a fact, but no back story, no information dumps.
Thoughts?
I personally think you should make a graph of your characters bloodlines and who begat who, people love that. Seriously though i have a problem with this, its a huge genre fiction problem. The world building has to evolve through character interaction. Listing who someone is should be minimal or said through dialogue in a natural way.
Yeah, I'm a nerd, I love information, but sometimes I read stuff (even two books recently) and I just think "GET TO THE DAMN POINT!"
Maybe it is a side effect of our culture or something. Plus I am an impatient bastard about certain things.
No, yours is more lost in detail from what I've seen. I think some of the stuff I have read from you recently is great, like really, really great.
senior poet of the site."
Haha! I am in love with adverbs, but I had to break up with them. Softly.
personal story word-vomits."
LOL
Look at clothes, then write a poem, then figure out your camera. Problem solved. Naturally.
So it looks like the scatter option is the bestest.
Back on track, here. The thing about research is that there's never too much. The thing about info dumps is they are almost always too much.
An info dump can destroy your fiction, because it always makes your reader very conscious of the narrator. But you, the writer, should know enough about what you're writing that your fiction is infused with your research; they are organically the same creature. And it comes across with the same craft as the rest of what you're writing. Have Abe Lincoln fingering the wart behind his ear, don't say, "Historians believe Abe had a wart behind his ear."
It's the same with history, science, psych. All those big bodies of knowledge. Yes, there are times and places for everything, and an occasional info dump of a paragraph might save you three very carefully crafted pages of action and dialogue. You have to be very careful with that.
But there is no too much when it comes to knowing your subject, unless you begin to use research as your crutch reason to not begin your writing.
What was it Hemingway said? He compared his writing to an iceberg with, “seven-eighths of it under water for every part that shows". That is because of his awareness of the relation between the truth of facts and events and his conviction that they produce corresponding emotions. If you know your characters well enough, you don't have to say it, the audience will know, because you know.
Was any of that relevant?
Don't care, wanted to say it.
@Rachel, If you had a job you could get the purse!!!! Also, yes I was biting my nails. I really wasn't, but I figured it would make you feel great if I said I was!
@Utah, I think you bring up a good point. Kind of like it just ebbs and flows and sort of....just leaks into the overall story.
@AD Never saw that quote, but I like it.
Well, Hemingway has a short called Hills Like White Elephants, you can find it online. Read it. It's short! :D You won't be sorry.
There - I've helped.
Kind of like it just ebbs and flows and sort of....just leaks into the overall story.
Exactly. Just like it leaks into your conversations or what have you. And just as knowledge makes your conversation in general less awkward and more meaningful, having a deep, if unspoken, knowledge of the facts of the story you are telling makes that story less awkward and more meaningful.
Actually, this is 3 or 4 stories, all worth reading!!! Hemingway is the second one.
I love most things Hemingway has said about writing, I definitely agree that there is no such thing as too much research (unless it is keeping you from writing), but info dumps are usually rough reading. If we are being honest, I usually start skimming them if they are longer than a paragraph, no matter how well they are written.
I have yet to read any of it, but I shall shortly.
I fucking love Utah!
Defender! Help! SPAM!
I was so going to run it. Oh, well. Matt, you wanna go get Breakfast?
micturate®
I just ate, but I'll get some coffee with ya
accumulation dumps™
rickywhore™
Chester Pane™
thingbat™
Nice Mattthingbat™
Clobber this whore.
Haha, will do good sir!
Defender? Well Utah and me are tied up at the moment.
can micturate fill regain missing. I jazz started spreading my shove around. Testking 640-864 A annotate here, a conversation there. Maybe a fact, but no rear account, no accumulation dumps.Testking 646-364
Tweet. I am so tweeting this. Well, in my Chesticle abridged version.
Fuck I am slow. I can hardly type. I think it is time to check into prehab™.
That's beautiful Chester. Spam pomes™
Ooooh. I like that.
I just daublered in my dungarees™
Remind me to leave my tweeter open.
Jonny Gibbings already had a long post about leaving your tweeter open. That thunder has been stolen.
I would write a long post, say something constructive, but you bunch of cunts would only correct my spelling and grammar. I wanted to get involved, but being clinically retarded, I thought it better not to.
I had an argument in pajama bottoms once. I have to wonder why they make the cock slit so big, because my penis kept falling out, and trust me, my penis isn't big. You can't have nor win an argument, with your cock hanging out of pajama bottoms. You look like a mental patient. It's like your cock is going "Why is everyone fighting?" So here is my suggestion. Before engaging in a post like this, put pajama bottoms on and flop your cock out, to ensure nobody fights each other. I'm not sure what the ladies will do? Maybe pajama bottoms and inset s stick of celery in yourself?
My point is... can't we all get along? I men, look at it, you've all got super hero names! Chester Pane - PANE for fucks sake? You can't argue in a group that has people with a name like Pane! Dakota Taylor! You kidding me? If I was called that, I'd just beat people up, just so I could say Dakota Taylor did this. If you are called Dakota, you have to talk about yourself in the third person - FACT. Phil... you are named after a country! HELLO? Cool name.......... Renee Pickup! HELLO? With a name like that? Hot super hero chick! It's a James Bond name, like Pussy Gallore "Scchhho wasch your name pretty Lady" (Connery by the Way)
"Pickup.... Reneeeeeeeeee Pick-up" OOOohhhhhh....
Daniel Gonzales. Detective Danny Gonzales....
Look at me. Jonny Gibbings.... how shit? I don't even qualify for the group on name status, let alone being a shitty fuck of a writer. I'd be the name of the first victim!
We are writers. Stop fighting words are simply our tools. My words are my tool. As you are reading this, it’s like I am putting my tool inside you. My book is my tool. I want to put my tool in as many people as possible. I guess what I am saying is I want to be in your mouth. Okay, I agree, I might not have the best tool. But my tool has satisfied many people. I still love words, they touch that inner child we have inside all of us. Regardless of age, we all have that inner child. So lets stop arguing about what to love, and enjoy love. The love of being a writer. A love of books. Let’s stop fighting and let me put my tool in you and and let me touch your child.
I suggest we all get together when the sun goes down. Just all of us, possibly in the car park to accommodate the numbers. We then can get our tools out. You can place your tool in my hand, and I in yours. Your tool might be bigger than mine, but I will still want it in me. I will long for my tool to be in the mouths of people I don’t know. Lets get together and touch some children.
- Jonny Gibbings
open tweeter.
I fucking love Utah!™
-whoreboy
God damn, Chester.
I don't wanna edit your post man but...come on.
Edit: So there is no misunderstanding, I am talking about the post that is a photo of a large, uncircumcised penis.
Are you talking about censorship?
I am...suggesting...self-censorship.
Well, just to be fair...I have a really, really difficult time censoring art.
But do what you feel is right. I trust you.
I understand. That's why I've copied this photo and plan to put it up on facebook for the world to experience.
On a side note, do you think he uses that thing as a close putter when he's golfing?
Robert Mapplethorpe
I love that cock™. I think Cris wants to try her throat-lab™ umbrian mating dance with it.
Who wouldn't?
Uh-oh™
Actually, the funny thing is that the world already did.
Use it as a golf putter?
I remember when this thread used to be about Didacticism and information dumps.
Now it's dedicated to that guy up there's meaty unit.
Careful. Not sure you want to censure these. Afterall, I did this very thing with a Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper and, well, I won. He-he.
Push the envelope.
I need to make a coke run...back in a few....
For the love of God why. Why did I need to see that.
