Great fiction folds background information into the story so seamlessly that the reader doesn’t know s/he’s being informed as well as entertained. In bad writing, however, information delivery appears as a boring expository lump which bumps the reader right out of the story.

The genres most susceptible to expository lumps (also known as infodump) are those in which the writer often needs to deliver information about a time or place likely to be unfamiliar to the reader, for example, science fiction, historical fiction, and techno-thrillers.

Today I’ll discuss science fiction.

From its infancy, SF has used exposition in its most rudimentary form: undisguised wodges of technical and cultural background. “Seventeen years ago he had discovered brillium, the new element that made it possible for housewives to go ten years without mopping their kitchen floors. This, of course, utterly changed society because….”

A marginally less crude method became popular during the Golden Age of the thirties and forties, in which the hero explains something in simple terms to his (and, yes, I use the word deliberately) girlfriend, or the Professor to his (ditto) daughter: “Well now, honey, that big old thing over there the size of a city block is my hyperdrive lawnmower. See those busbars and vacuum tubes? Well, they let that baby zoom around the lawn at fifty parsecs! Here’s how it works….”

As the genre grew, writers thought themselves terribly sophisticated when they started using devices such as The Encyclopedia Galactica and excerpts from news broadcasts: “It was discovered today by scientists working in the Bristol pharmacuetical labs that repeated application of iced tea to petri dishes reduced replication error to the statistically insignificant. We turn now to our science correspondent in Washington. ‘Well, Jim, scientists here believe the whole structure of society will change. Here’s why….’” (Sadly, some writers still think this is a pretty smooth way to deliver information.)

The best way to get information across to the reader is to filter it through the consciousness of your viewpoint (or other) character. Use specific detail. Give some value judgements: “Man, I hate this fucking hyperdrive lawnmover. At fifty parsecs you can’t steer the damn thing straight and I keep chopping down Lucy’s primroses and stuff. Then Lucy comes out and screeches, ‘Take that heap of busbars and vacuum tubes and pound it up your ass!’ Man, she loves those flowers….” Here we’ve not only learned something about the hyperdrive lawnmower, but about the protagonist, where he lives, and his wife.

Dialogue is often a useful way to impart information because it keeps the delivery lively and relevant to the story and the people in it. After all, you’re writing fiction, not an article for New Scientist.

However, avoid As as you know, Bob dialogue (AYKB). Soap operas are the prime perpetrators: “Welcome, Bob, my identical twin. As you know, our sister, Susan, who has amnesia and is pregnant by our mutal enemy, has a birthday today…”

It’s easy to avoid AYKB dialogue. Just stop and think. If you had an identical twin, how would you talk to him? Imagine the look on his face if you started telling him about his sister. That’s the key to all good writing: be there. Be inside your character’s skin. See, smell, hear, feel, think, know as they do. Believe it. If you don’t believe it, no one else will.

Posted by: Nicola