By
Elizabeth MS Flynn, w/a Eilis Flynn
Say you’re starting work on your latest story. You’ve
just done a ton of research on it to get all the details right, down to the
outer ridge of your heroine’s boot, manufactured in Kokomo, Indiana, having a
distinctive triangular pattern as a post-modern variation of a 15th-century
Native American design from the Humptulips, WA, region. You are proud of what
you’ve done, and who could blame you? Inspired, you want to bring the reader
into the story and you want him or her to be as fascinated and intrigued by it
as you are. But you make a small tactical error. Just a small one. You dump all
this stuff at the beginning of your story so they can get started on the
wonderfulness that is your story…
And you are left scratching your head when the readers
don’t come, or they read the first couple of pages…and wander away, choosing
not to continue. What happened? Why weren’t they fascinated? What’s wrong with
them?!
Here’s the thing. You gave them too MUCH. You didn’t
give them a little of the wonderfulness at a time. You scared them away! How
did they not find that triangular pattern on your heroine’s boot to be the most
fascinating thing in the world? How in the world could they not want to know
how that works into the complex comedy of errors plot? How could they not want
to know more with that flood of interesting minutia?
This musing came about when my friend Heather Hiestand
and I started to talk about the imparting of information and how too much makes
our potential reader wander off, bored, especially in today’s
short-attention-span society. That’s the problem with info dumps. It’s too
much, too soon, and our eyes, used to tidbits about the Kardashians and the
latest about Lindsay Lohan, go blind with actual, useful information.
So how much research is just right? What’s the tidbit to
work in, what isn’t? Here are some tricks and tips to keep in mind when it
comes to making the best use of your research, along with some examples.
info dumps that work
Gone
with the Wind:
Scarlett O’Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom
realized it when caught by her charm as the Tarleton twins were. In her face
were too sharply blended the delicate features of her mother, a Coast
aristocrat of French descent, and the heavy ones of her florid Irish father.
But it was an arresting face, pointed of chin, square of jaw. Her eyes were
pale green without a touch of hazel, starred with bristly black lashes and
slightly tilted at the ends. Above them, her thick black brows slanted upward,
cutting a startling oblique line in her magnolia-white skin—that skin so prized
by Southern women and so carefully guarded with bonnets, veils and mittens
against hot Georgia suns.
***
Now you may ask, how the heck did Margaret Mitchell get
away with THAT? Talk about a classic info dump!
Why’s it work?
Only with the second paragraph do we find out where the
scene is set, in the Georgian country plantation where the family lives. So we learn
not only does Scarlett get what she wants, she considers herself beautiful, and
she has the world at her fingertips. This opener of Mitchell’s is famous
because it is so infamously cumbersome. Whether or not you’re a fan, the
introduction shows the reader that the story of Scarlett O’Hara is a story about
Americans, a mixture of this and that and resulting in a character who’s flawed
and foolish and conniving but strong enough to survive. So this is a case of an
info dump that sets up the protagonist.
Then there’s the classic opening for
Rebecca:
Last
night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.
It
seemed to me I stood by the iron gate leading to the drive, and for a while I
could not enter, for the way was barred to me. There was a padlock and a chain
upon the gate. I called in my dream to the lodge-keeper, and had no answer, and
peering closer through the rusted spokes of the gate I saw that the lodge was
uninhabited.
***
Does it work?
This is an example of an opener that could work for you,
or could not. Aside from the introductory sentence, the details that follow sets
the scene, but depending on what you’re expecting to find, it can be considered
intriguing or boring. And from what I’ve heard commented, the interest can also
be split into forms of fiction you’re interested in, and even gender (behold
the modern man, whose interest in classic suspense seems to be at an all-time
low unless there’s blood or gore described).
What to describe? Describe the clothing, the
surroundings, the setting only as it
moves the story. Author Jacquie Rogers, who writes Westerns, has told me
from time to time that she tends to skip over details in her stories, to the
point that all her characters might as well be naked. Or “nekkid,” her word.
That’s the other extreme. Research is lovely, research is glorious, but if it
doesn’t further your story, it’s just a lump o’ words. AVOID LUMP O’ WORDS!
They stop your story COLD.
Heather and I are presenting this information as a
workshop for Emerald City Writers’ Conference in a couple of weeks. Let’s hope
that we’re succinct and don’t go into info dumps!
Elizabeth
MS Flynn has written fiction in the form of comic book stories, romantic
fantasies, urban fantasies, historical fantasies and short stories, a young
adult novel, and a graphic novella (most published under the name of Eilis
Flynn). She’s also a professional editor and has been for more than 35 years,
working with academia, technology, and finance nonfiction, and romance fiction.
If you’re looking for an editor, she can be found editing at emsflynn.com and
reached at emsflynn@aol.com. If you’re curious about her books, check out
eilisflynn.com. In any case, she can be reached at eilisflynn@aol.com.