Emily: Hey, writers. Welcome back to Story Magic, the podcast that will help you write a book you're damn proud of.
Rachel: I'm Rachel.
Emily: And I'm Emily.
Rachel: And today we're going to talk about the difference between exposition and info dump. So this is such a good topic. This is a very common question that I think we get and also a pretty common feedback area that we see in writers works. And we always get the question of what's the balance between the two? What's the difference? What's the balance? Why is exposition good? Why is info dump bad? And how do you tell even the difference between those two things? They're both like long passages of information. So how are they how are they different? And how can you tell?
Emily: Absolutely. So the difference between the two really comes down to three things. And these are three things that we talk about all the time in the context of all kinds of other craft tools, but we're going to break them down as to what they mean for this topic. And those three things are purpose, relevance, and meaning to the characters. So the purpose of a right, you want to think about what is the purpose of including a big chunk of information, a big chunk of what we would call tell. You're telling the reader a bunch of information. And so the purpose is why is it there? Why is it on the page? Why do you need it? The relevance is, is it important to what is happening on the page at this time in the story? And the meaning, what is the significance to the character in that moment on the page, and also the meaning to the story as a whole. So we're going to break that down.
Rachel: We see this happen a lot when a writer is thinking, well, the purpose is that the reader needs to know it. This is important because the reader needs to know it. So usually when you have, like, a chunk of information, it's almost the author trying to catch the reader up to what's going on in the story because they believe, like, if they didn't know this part about the world, then they would not get the story. It wouldn't make sense. So they end up putting like, a bunch of context on the page here's, like a history of the world or here is how the magic system works. And in their heads, they're thinking, yes, this is important and relevant because if the reader didn't know it, it wouldn't make sense. But that's why we add on those other two pieces of relevance to what's happening on the story page and meaning, what's the significance to the character, because that's really where this line falls as exposition has those three things and infotump doesn't. Infodemp is just that information put on the page for kind of no reason other than, well, I think the reader should know this.
Emily: Yeah. So at its core, these two things are really not that different. Essentially, an info jump is just a bad version of exposition, where you're putting exposition on the page, but it doesn't have purpose, relevance, or meaning. Then it becomes an info dump. You're just dumping information on the reader without weaving it into the story in a way that is relevant and meaningful. And so we're going to break down exactly how you take an info dump or a section of information and make it into really good exposition.
Rachel: Yeah, we have a couple of different examples. Let's start with our info dump examples and let's talk about those. Before we jump into these examples. I do want to clarify that if you are writing a first, 2nd, 3rd draft, whatever, please do not overthink this. Especially for me as like a discovery writer. Info dumping as I am uncovering the story is a very large portion of my process because I am learning what to say about the story as I draft. So if you're drafting in very early phases, don't worry about this because you can always revise it to fit more of an exposition, more of a purposeful and impactful purpose later. But just please note that it is okay to do info dumps. You are not a bad writer if you have info dumps.
Emily: Yeah, I love that advice. I have a client who's on the second draft of her story with me right now, one of my one on one clients. And when we were working on her Act One, she was really struggling with what information to put where, because she just has a very complex world. There's a lot of political stuff that's going on that's really important to the story. There's a lot of magical stuff, magic system stuff that needs to be understood to really understand the stakes of the story. And so it was really becoming stressful for her to try to figure out how to get that quotations right on the page. So what we ended up doing was I basically was like, info dump, just put everything that you can think of on the page that is meaningful and needed for you to understand the context of this moment. And then we're going to go back and weave that in when we have a fresher perspective that is like, you can use an info dump as a tool to get you through a draft. She had a critique partner at that point in time who read an early version of the Act One before we did the info dumping, and she was really confused. And then she read the version with the info dumping and she was like, okay, I can see how you maybe have too much information on the page now, but it makes sense to me. And so sometimes you need to just get it out and come back later with fresh eyes.
Rachel: Yes, and you are not a bad writer if you info dump. So if you've ever gotten that feedback. Please don't take that to heart. And also don't be listening to our examples here of info dumping and feel like, oh my gosh, I do that.
Emily: I must be terrible, must be a failure.
Rachel: There's a reason that this is a very common question, and the more you get used to giving things purpose and making it relevant and adding in meaning to your characters, it becomes easier and your brain will start to adapt to those patterns as you draft. So that's very important that we talked about that. So now I want to share two examples, and they're very similar. I just read A fantasy romance, and I'm not going to share the title or the author just because I'm not ragging on the book in any means. So I'm just going to describe to you what this passage was like. And the main character had basically just been kidnapped, slash, taken by coercion by the male leads of this book in order to protect her safety. This is a romance. So anyway, as she is kind of like, writing through the wilderness with these gentlemen, they're explaining to her, like, the history of the world. And as I read it, I was like, why do I need to know this? That was the first thought in my head. I was like, okay, that's great, but great history of the world. This character was also, like, a resident of this world. So I kept thinking in my head, like, why doesn't she know this? She doesn't live in the middle of nowhere. Why are they telling her this history? And why is it important? And it gave me context as the reader to understand where these guys were coming from and why they had come to her village to help her, basically. But I read it, and in this conversation was just left feeling like, okay.
Emily: I think everyone, we're all readers, we all know that feeling, right? You're in a book, you're deep in a book, things are happening, and then all of a sudden, the author is just dumping information on you. And you can't help but think, why do I need this right now?
Rachel: Yes.
Emily: And so that feeling as a reader, you all know what that feels like. That's what we want to avoid, is that sense of what is the purpose of this being in here right now? Yeah, that's what we're talking about when we're talking about infodemp.
Rachel: Exactly. I could tell that the author put it there because she felt like you needed to know this context about the world before this character was about to enter the political machinations of this world. But in that moment, they're riding through the wilderness doing nothing else but chatting about the history. This doesn't really seem that important right now. Like, aren't you worried about the people chasing you? That's really what we because it was not relevant to that character at that time, and it had no meaning to her. Like, as this character was hearing the history, she just was like, okay, check mark done. Good to know it didn't have any, like, specific significance to her at that moment. It was very much like, you might need to know this later because in 20 chapters from now, you're going to run into the politics, but right now, I just want you to know about the world. It very much was a fill in the reader type of passage. So that's where it kind of crosses the line into infinite. Okay, so now my second example of infinitem is extremely similar because I did the exact same thing in the first draft of my previous work in progress. And I remember Emily reading it and highlighting it and being like, why, years and years ago, when we had first met as critique partners, but I did the exact same thing where my character was having a conversation and someone was explaining to her, like, the history of the world. And I remember writing it at that time thinking like, okay, the reader needs to know all this context. But I also remember my character saying on the page, I already know all of this. She acknowledged, and I had her hiding that she knew the history because it was kind of giving away a little bit about her identity. So someone was telling her the history about her own family, and so she was hiding the fact that she knew that history. And so in her head, she was thinking, I already know this. Then afterwards I was like, if you already know this, why is it on the page? It's not important. It's not meaningful or relevant to her at that time. So as we were prepping like, what are we going to talk about for this podcast? And I read that first passage in my first example, I literally was like, immediately, oh, I did the exact same thing.
Emily: It's me. I see myself.
Rachel: I did that. I've done that before. So, yeah, that also wasn't relevant. And it 100% came from my own author feelings of, I feel like the reader needs to know this. And they didn't nobody really cared because it wasn't the reason why the reader doesn't need to know it at that time is because it is not relevant to what's happening on the page. It's not meaningful to that character at that moment.
Emily: Yeah, because as readers, we take away the information that the character does in any given moment. And so if information is not meaningful or relevant to a character, then the reader is not going to hold on to it. We won't understand what meaning to give it and where to assign it in our brains. And so even if you're coming to the page thinking, oh, they need all this context in order to understand things, the reader is not going to take in that context because they're going to have nothing to attach it to. And so, again, we want to give it purpose on the page. We want to make sure it's relevant to what's happening in the moment, and we want to make sure it's meaningful to the character in the moment. So we have an example for you guys from the poppy word, and it's pretty long because exposition is long. That's just how it is. So hang in with us, because I think from beginning to end, it's really comprehensive of what we're trying to show you guys in terms of purpose, relevance and meaning. So Rachel is going to read it for us and then we're going to break it down and talk about why it works. And then we'll finish up the podcast with a couple of questions that you can ask yourself to gauge if something is info dumper exposition. So hang in with us. It's going to be awesome.
Rachel: So this is on pages 16 and 17 of the first Poppy War book. So it's very early and I think that is where we see a lot of exposition passages come from. But we're going to talk about why this is not info dump and why this is relevant exposition. So I will go ahead and read it to give some context. The main character's name is Ren. She is trying to take a test, which, if she passes it, will send her to this very prestigious military school and basically catapult her status from very, very low to a highly respected member of society. So she's preparing to take this test. That night, cradleing a stolen candle on the floor of the cramped bedroom that she shared with Kasegi, rin cracked open her first Keju primer. The Keju tested the four noble subjects history, mathematics, logic and the classics. The imperial bureaucracy and synagogue considered these subjects integral to the development of a scholar and a statesman. Rin had to learn them all. By her 16th birthday, she set a tight schedule for herself. She was to finish at least two books every week and to rotate between two subjects each day. Each night, after she closed up shop, she ran to Tudor Fehrik's house before returning home arms laden with more books. History was the easiest to learn. Nikon's history was a highly entertaining saga of constant warfare. The empire had been formed a millennium ago under the mighty sword of the merciless Red Emperor, who destroyed the monastic orders scattered across the continent and created a unified state of unprecedented size. It was the first time the Nakara people had ever conceded of themselves as a single nation. The Red Emperor standardized the Nakara language, issued a uniform set of weights and measurements, and built a system of roads that connected his sprawling territory. But the newly conceived Nakara Empire did not survive the Red Emperor's death. His many heirs turned the country into a bloody mess. During the era of warring states that followed, which divided Nikon into twelve rival provinces, since then the massive country had been reunified conquered, exploited, shattered and then unified again. Nikhan had in turn been at war with the cons of the northern hinterlands and the tall westerners from across the great sea. Both times Nikon had proven itself too massive to suffer foreign occupation for very long. Of all Nikon's attempted conquerors, the Federation of Mugen had come the closest. The island country had attacked Nikon at a time when domestic turmoil between the provinces was at its peak. It took two poppy wars and 50 years of bloody occupation for Nikon to win back its independence. The Empress Sudaji, the last living member of the Troika had seized control of the state during the second Poppy war. Now ruled over a land of twelve provinces that had never quite managed to achieve the same unity that the Red Emperor had imposed. The Nicara empire had proven itself historically unconquerable but it was also unstable and disunited and the current spell of peace held no promise of durability. If there was one thing Rin had learned about her country's history it was that the only permanent thing about the Nikara Empire was war. So good, so good. So thanks for sticking around for that.
Emily: Yeah, so it's lots of information right? But it works so well because a we get the meaning, the top level meeting I think there's a lot of meaning in here but the top level meaning is this country is ruled by war.
Rachel: Right?
Emily: That war is at the heart and soul of everything that Rinse country is and she's just really learning about it for the first time. She's a kid, she's studying history. She is interesting to her.
Rachel: She's a war orphan. So this is the first time though that she's learning about the context of the wars of Nikon itself. She knows she's a war orphan but she doesn't know like oh the Nikkara empire has been in war for 1000 years since it's inception.
Emily: Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so purpose. Yeah, there's so much purpose like where to start.
Rachel: I know. So at the beginning of this Rin is studying, she's taking the Keju which is that test and this is one of the subjects, history is one of the subjects that she has to know it's on the page because it has to do with what Rinse doing at that time which also gives it like relevance. But the reader is learning about all of the history of this conflicted and it says reunified conquered, exploitered, shattered and then unified again. That's the history of this nation that Ren is a part of. And she's studying to take a test to send her to military academy so that she can become an important military person. So that she can become a strategist or a general, a commander. That's what she's aiming for. So all of this is giving her context of like what is she going to, how is it going to shape her worldview as she takes this test and goes to school.
Emily: It's also sort of setting up what to expect when she gets to school because her school, we get this history of the country described as this country of provinces that have been unified and at war back and forth constantly throughout time. And so she's about to go to school with a bunch of other kids from all of these provinces. And so we get her perspective of the country's history and her perspective of how the provinces get along before she gets there. And so it's almost like it's not not like Rin knew all of this stuff before, and she's telling it to us. We are learning as she is literally learning as she is reading her books and learning the history. We are learning her view of the history and her understanding of the relationships between these provinces and her understanding of what War has looked like in this country. And that shapes both how she sees the school and her role in the Empire's War Machine. But it also shapes our view of it because our view is her view. And so it's super relevant in the moment to setting us up to going with her to school and understanding what she understands about the world.
Rachel: Yeah. So it's not just like, okay, you should know about Nikon. So here's all this information about Nikon. It's like, okay, Ren needs to learn this so she can take this test. And then also, this is meaningful to Ren. This is teaching her what she needs to know to go to school. This passage also dances around and touches on very clearly the major themes of this story, which are war, unity and disunity, conquering, being conquered. This entire story is about the consequences of war. And we get such a clear snapshot of that just from this one page exposition piece where it's already promising us, like, okay, Rin thinks that she's learning about this. This is what Rin will be first hand experiencing through the entire book.
Emily: Yeah.
Rachel: And the series. The entire series.
Emily: I love that. I love that observation because when we talk about the story point or the message of your story, you want it to be present in everything. And in this case, it's very present in the world building of this story. And so this passage has meaning not just to rein in the moment, but it has meaning to the story as a whole. It's setting up the themes, it's setting up the message, it's setting up her worldview. And so that idea of meaning is twofold. You want it to mean something in the moment to the character, but you also want it to have meaning to the story as a whole.
Rachel: Yes, absolutely. Speaking of meaning to the story as a whole, this is very early of a poppy war. So I haven't given you many spoilers yet, but I am about to give you some spoilers. So pause now if you do not want those. But there are many things in this passage that come back into play later in the story. The passage mentions the Federation of Mugen as the closest outside force to almost conquer Nikon, that is, who starts the war that Rin experiences in. So it's talking about how they had been at war with the Federation of Mugen before and they come back into play where they do go to war with Mugan again. The Empress Sudaji, who is the last living member of the Troika, the Triad who saved the country in the last war she's mentioned. Sudagi is a very important character in this series. The hinterlands is mentioned. We go to the hinterlands, we see the Henrylands, we have characters from the Hendrilands. Everything that it's kind of touching on comes back to be part of Ren's life. So it's not just like you're hearing about these things that have no impact on Ren later. They do come back and impact Ren later.
Emily: I love it. Yeah, it's such a brilliant peacefix position. I want to point out because we start the passage with Ren reading, opening her primers, and she has four subjects, and the four subjects are history, math, logic and the classics. And I want to note that that's literally all we hear about math, magic, mathematics, logic and the classics. We don't hear anything else about those subjects because it's not important to the meaning of the story as a whole. The history has relevance and meaning to the rest of the story. So it's a passage of time. We're getting a jump in time of her studying week after week after week. We get an understanding that she has four subjects, but we're not really going into all the details about those things that aren't going to come back and matter. We get the detail on the subject that is going to matter pretty soon and throughout the entire series, which is the history. I get this question a lot with folks who are working on stories that have schools in them. How do I explain what's going on in every class? How do I give context of everything that's going on? And the key is to figure out what are the details, the couple of details that you can expand upon that bring meaning to the moment and meaning to the story as a whole, and then just skim over the rest of it. Just like happens in this passage with skimming over the rest of the other three subjects and just focusing on history.
Rachel: Yeah, I love this. So let's talk about doing this for yourself. Emily, can you start us off with like, okay, I have written something, I'm not sure, is it info up or exposition? What do I do? Absolutely.
Emily: So, first of all, don't panic. It's okay. Especially if you're in a first draft, not a big deal. But the first question you should write or ask yourself is am I writing this passage? Because the reader needs to know it. If the reader doesn't need to know it, you definitely don't need it on the page. So that's like the number one question. Does the reader really need to know it to understand your character's immediate circumstances? And I mean that literally, like the immediate circumstances on the page in that paragraph, can we understand it without this information or not? And then moving forward from there, you want to ask yourself what is the purpose of that information? Why does the reader need to know it and how can you, I think, focus in on that purpose in the passage?
Rachel: Right?
Emily: Like we were just talking about with written, we need to know there's a passage of time. We need to know she's studying these different things, but where and there can we find the most purpose? And that's in history.
Rachel: So after you ask yourself those two questions, then you can move on to what's its relevance to this specific part of the story? Why does it need to be here and not ten pages from now? Why does it need to be in this moment? Why is it relevant to what's going on? And from there you can then ask yourself what's the meaning of what you're explaining to this character at that moment? How are they going to process this information? What do they think about it? Why is it impacting them? Why is it significant to them at that moment? If you can answer all four of those questions, like, does the reader need to know it? What's the purpose? Is it relevant? What's the meaning? If you can answer all four of those things, you're on the right track for exposition. If you're left thinking it's not relevant, great. It's probably info down.
Emily: Yeah. And the other thing is, if you are answering the questions well, yeah, the reader is going to need to know this. And this information has a purpose, but you can't make it relevant to the character in that moment of the story. Then ask yourself, when is this information relevant to them? And where can I move this information? That's what that client I was talking about earlier. And that's what we're going to do when we go back to look at her. Act one is we're going to say, okay, we have this piece of information. What's the first place where you really need to know it to understand what's going on? And that is where we'll find a way to make it relevant to the character.
Rachel: Awesome. So that's the balance. That's the balance.
Emily: That's it.
Rachel: Position and info dump. If you are ever feeling like, I really feel so lost in the weeds with this and I am not sure at all, that is a great time to give it to somebody to read. Whether you're in a writing group where you have a critique partner or whatever it is those outside eyes can immediately tell you, this feels purposeless. Hopefully, they're not saying it in a rude way, but they'll be able to say, like, I don't understand why this is here. And that tells you that, okay, I might not be relevant. It might not have any meaning to that character, and then you can decide where it goes after that.
Emily: They can also help gauge where you need more exposition right where context is missing and they don't understand what's going on on the page and help you find that balance. That's a really good point, Rachel, because we have to remember that we know everything. As a writer, we know everything, which makes it really hard especially to figure out where to seed information and where to seed exposition. So lean on other people. Lean on readers to do that.
Rachel: Outside eyes are so helpful for this. All right. All right.
Emily: So if you want to build a successful, fulfilling, and sustainable writing life that works for you, you've got to get on our email list.
Rachel: Sign up now to get our our free email course, the magic of character arcs. After seven days of email magic, you'll have the power to keep your reader's flipping pages all through the night.
Emily: Link is in the show notes. We'll see you there.
