Thursday 2 July 2009

The infodump problem

Chapter three is going to be a problem. I've known this for a while, but I'm still not sure what to do about it. As you may have guessed the problem is that the chapter contains an infodump, or at least it contains something I would consider an infodump. I'm not actually sure it fits the definition though, since it's not actually there to explain anything to the reader - or at least it's not needed for that (it inevitably does).

It's there to explain things to the protagonist. After the events of the first two chapters she's grabbed the one person who looks like they might know what's going on and is demanding answers. I'm not sure how to avoid having the character give them to her. They have no reason not to answer and the protagonist isn't going to act until she's told something.

Now it has to be said that most of this - hum - faux-infodump is later shown to be inaccurate, but it's still an expository dialogue that's likely to create a wall for the reader.

I suppose I need to come up with a different way to move the character forward, but I'm not sure what yet.

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