I am more than a little hazy on how to split the proverbial hair on this subject. In past critiques the 'info-dump' seems to have become a quick throw-down cliche phrase to justify leaping over anything which does not immediately engage the action/excitement level in the critiquer, er... reader.

Its the difference between 'the car is red' and 'the red car sped through the intersection'. In the first, the focus in on the information that the car is red, in the second, the focus is on the car speeding through the intersection.

First, see if there's a way to sprinkle the information throughout the narrative rather than putting it all in one place. Have things happen in between the chunks of info, even if it's just people passing peas and glances around the dinner table. In fact, you can use looks, interaction with the setting and the inner thoughts of the pov character to break up a big info dump. Or you can even put significant space between the pieces of info. It depends on the info you're trying to fit in.

Also, this is where having a naive character can help you diseminate information. If you have someone wandering around that doesn't already know everything, then he/she can ask questions that will also benefit the reader. Don't make this blatantly transparent, but try to work it into a natural sounding conversation.

Another theory is that if you make the reader really want to know the information, they will devour it happily, without thinking of it as an info dump. There is also the case for making the info as interesting as possible. Don't turn it into a history lesson.

Here's a link to what a bunch of different authors have to say on the subject:

http://community.livejournal.com/enchantedinkpot/65572.html

I tend to think of the Kingdom as one of the characters. I am at the point in the story where this character needs fleshing out a little in order to clearly understand why one of the greatest hero's in the land (MC) feels revulsion when she sees the capitol city in the distance.

One problem I am facing is the lack of a definitive POV during the three paragraphs in question. The info-thing dovetails into her POV as she ponders her own internal reaction to the spectacular, visually beautiful site. It is in her POV that we see the juxtaposition come into view; the 'flotsam' of poor folks living beneath the shadow of the ridiculously wealthy. This is huge in the story-line. Without a clear understanding of the character of the Kingdom, the MC's function is uncertain early on. It is one of the strongest aspects of why she is doing what she is doing.

Do both characters feel the same way at sight of the capital or only the MC? If only the MC, could there be something along the way that makes her say or think--"See, that's what's wrong with this country"?

Getting a story off the ground is like building a fire with a stick and bow drill. Very fiddly. You start with wood shavings, work your way up to twigs until you're tossing entire narrative logs onto the fire. Getting a speculative fiction story off the ground is like doing that in the pouring rain. It's so easy to smother that spark of reader interest.

Here's what I think. Sooner or later, you've got to bite the bullet and drop a little bit of exposition into the story. Just be aware that you may be smothering that spark of interest, and you'll automatically be careful about piling on too much at a time.

Here's what I think is most important: don't leave readers drowning in incomprehension. Always give them something understandable to latch onto, and that buys you a little room for exposition. I remember one manuscript, magnificent in its way, that had an entire foreign culture envisioned in great detail. This culture had its system of timekeeping, and something like five standard meals each with their own name, multiple foreign cultures that traded with them etc. So the story opens with a caravan camped outside a city. It is early morning, and the traders are cooking breakfast. A nice opening scene, but *everything had a different name*. So it did not say "caravan", "trader", "early morning" or "breakfast". No, each of those things had their own name.

There isn't really a perfect formula for opening a story that gets you around this. For example the common advice is to get your characters moving and doing things right at the start. But sometimes who the characters are, what they are doing, and why are totally obscure. So you get something like this:

"Vardakan, Chief Podeckler of the Marksvessel Fliegadler was aroused from sumsram by the beedler. 'Vardakan, you poduk!' shouted the veselvacher, 'get your vimvam down here, there's an obstruction in main podlekway!'"

[tell me you haven't seen manuscripts open that way...]

When this would do just as well:

"Vardakan, head plumber of the flagship Fliegadler, was woken by the blare of the intercom. 'Vardakan, you piece of ****!', shouted the watch officer, 'get your ass down here, the toilets are clogged again!'"

At this point the special names, ranks, engineering details of the ship and alien anatomy (maybe Vardakan doesn't actually *have* an ass to get down there) have no meaning or interest to us, but we can understand and follow the POV character's problem, enough that we can slip one or two pieces of world building into this generally understandable matrix. As the story progresses, you can dump bigger and bigger chunks of exposition onto it, until the story is capable of igniting whole logs.

"This beer tastes like wee-wee," the filthy pirate spat, dashing his tankard to the floor.

I was about to post something similar because I was having trouble with my chapter 7 which gave a better intro to the bad guys. I already have them at odds before they meet which adds tension and action to the scene, but I was worried I was spilling to much info about each and slowing the pace I had going, but after reading the posts here and the articles I think I've found a different solution that will kept thing blazing along.

But now, cry, cry, I need to rewrite chapter seven which I spent all last night writing, I could just move on but I think it needs to be fixed first because the end of the chapter will be slightly different.

I'm a fan of action first info later.

Dan brown who is mentioned here a lot drives me nuts in his books because he won't give you a clue as to what is really happening. I recently read about a third of the Lost symbol and final put it down out of frustration that you have no clue of where the story is going and at times his MC seems like a dork. Having gone through all he has he still acts like 'Who me solve this?' It gets irritating fast. Especially because he's still whining by page 210 in the third book.

W.

I read a short story that I thought had a great example of a info dump included in the story. A werewolf-the type that can change at will-came to visit a witch. She made coffee for him. During that scene, where she made the coffee, all types of things were revealed.

But a number of writers just do them. So confused I asked Dean Wesley Smith about info dumps. he said the only rule was that if they drew the reader out of the story there were bad, if they didn't draw the reader out of the story they were good.

Not surprised that mine are always noticed, no matter how short I make them.
It seems to be a skill we can learn or most writers can learn if they don't already do them well.

eyegore242 ~ I confess that I keep my little finger near the thesaurus, but I try not to use it unless the word I already have isn't cutting it. Sometimes I have the 50 cent word and I'm trying to downgrade it to the 11 cent version. MattLeo provided a great example; "... canoodling courtesan's son!" funny, funny.