“Your reader did not pick up your book to read an encyclopedia. They picked it up to live a story. Feed them information like breadcrumbs, not like a fire hose.”
— L.A. Walton, The Book Maven
Info-dumping is when you stop telling a story and start teaching a class. It’s the three-paragraph explanation of the magic system that interrupts an action scene. It’s the character who explains their entire backstory to a stranger at a bar. It’s the opening chapter that’s 90% world history and 10% anything happening.
Info-Dump Detection Guide
| Sign of an Info-Dump | The Fix |
| A character explains something they both already know. | Cut it. Find a natural way to reveal the info through action or conflict. |
| A paragraph of world-building interrupts a scene. | Sprinkle the details throughout multiple scenes instead. |
| The story stops moving forward during an explanation. | If the reader could skip it without losing the plot, it’s a dump. |
| You used the phrase ‘As you know…’ | Delete that phrase and everything after it. Start over. |
| A flashback is longer than the present-day scene. | Trim the flashback to its essential emotional beat. |
How to Convey Information Without Dumping
- Use conflict to reveal information. An argument about magic rules is more interesting than a lecture about them.
- Trust the reader. They can figure out more from context than you think. Don’t explain everything.
- Spread it out. Reveal information across many scenes in small doses, not in one giant exposition block.
- Make the character NEED the information. If a character is learning something for the first time, the reader learns too.
- The ‘iceberg rule.’ Show 10% of what you know. The other 90% informs the story’s texture without being stated.
Your Move, Creative
Search your current draft for any paragraph longer than 5 sentences that’s pure explanation. Can you break it up? Dramatize it? Or cut it entirely? Your pacing will thank you.
Stop letting your stories stay stuck.
