Author Topic: New short story in process  (Read 14292 times)

Offline Rasins

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Re: New short story in process
« Reply #30 on: July 21, 2017, 07:01:33 PM »
If it was a story about Harry going for ice cream, that's all that it would be about.  The info dump would be like if while going for ice cream, Harry was reminded of when he and Eb had went for ice cream, and you learn more about their relationship.  Or maybe while going for ice cream, Thomas drops by and talks to Harry about what's going on in his life...  That's my idea of an info dump.  Information given that isn't directly connected to the little story unfolding.

You mean like ... it's a story about a trip to the zoo.  They see lions there.  DId you know that the female lions are the ones who do all the hunting.  and ...

Then you go on about different things about lions. 

Is that an info dump?
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Offline Shecky

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Re: New short story in process
« Reply #31 on: July 21, 2017, 07:22:05 PM »
You mean like ... it's a story about a trip to the zoo.  They see lions there.  DId you know that the female lions are the ones who do all the hunting.  and ...

Then you go on about different things about lions. 

Is that an info dump?

No, that's just irrelevant background. An infodump is when story-necessary details are all lumped into one big delivery instead of integrated organically into the story where they would naturally occur (as "natural" as an artificially created story can be, that is). One of the old phrases in the genre writing community is "As you know, Bob," which mimics the typical start to such an infodump: one character explaining to another things they already know, purely for the purpose of delivering the information/background to the reader.

This is, of course, far too broad a generalization; good writers very often find ways of dumping a lot of story-necessary information at once without resorting to hamfisted "As you know, Bob" approaches, and nobody honestly thinks of those as infodumps. It's really a question of how deftly or clumsily the massive flow of information is woven into the effect of an organically developing plot/scene.
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Offline Kindler

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Re: New short story in process
« Reply #32 on: July 24, 2017, 04:03:59 PM »
No, that's just irrelevant background. An infodump is when story-necessary details are all lumped into one big delivery instead of integrated organically into the story where they would naturally occur (as "natural" as an artificially created story can be, that is). One of the old phrases in the genre writing community is "As you know, Bob," which mimics the typical start to such an infodump: one character explaining to another things they already know, purely for the purpose of delivering the information/background to the reader.

This is, of course, far too broad a generalization; good writers very often find ways of dumping a lot of story-necessary information at once without resorting to hamfisted "As you know, Bob" approaches, and nobody honestly thinks of those as infodumps. It's really a question of how deftly or clumsily the massive flow of information is woven into the effect of an organically developing plot/scene.

It's one of the reasons Bob was created, as far as I recall, as related by Jim. A good example in the story is Bob explaining the different types of werewolves in Fool Moon. It's justified within the story (Harry is asking him about it, and Bob talks for a few pages about them), so it avoids the kind of thing like, "As you know, Harry, there are four types of werewolves..."

Some like to use it to shoehorn characterization into a short scene. Christopher Nolan is bad about that. Watch Interstellar—way at the beginning, Michael Caine starts waxing poetical about how Matthew McCoughenaheralery was a brilliant engineer, and how he's frustrated that he was born into the wrong age and forced to go into agriculture, and so on. It overlaps with "show, don't tell"-related concepts (where this is telling rather than showing), similar to statements that start with "That makes me feel..."

Regular infodumps are possibly best exemplified by The Architect scene from the end of The Matrix Reloaded. He provides information relevant to the story and the universe in which it is set, explains a bunch of stuff, and then the story moves on.

Offline SintraEdrien

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Re: New short story in process
« Reply #33 on: July 25, 2017, 02:24:01 PM »
Infodump: see David Weber

teehee
:p


Offline Quantus

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Re: New short story in process
« Reply #34 on: July 25, 2017, 02:27:08 PM »
It's one of the reasons Bob was created, as far as I recall, as related by Jim. A good example in the story is Bob explaining the different types of werewolves in Fool Moon. It's justified within the story (Harry is asking him about it, and Bob talks for a few pages about them), so it avoids the kind of thing like, "As you know, Harry, there are four types of werewolves..."

Heheh, ya.  His writing instructor warned him not to let Bob's character become purely a vehicle for exposition, something commonly referred to as a "talking head".  So Jim went and made him a literal talking head.   ;D
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Offline Rasins

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Re: New short story in process
« Reply #35 on: July 27, 2017, 04:48:19 PM »
Ah, okay ... Now I get it.  I knew the story about Bob and thought it was a fantastic and typical way for Jim to get around those cliché's.

I remember Spock doing that a lot in ST:TOS.
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Offline Shecky

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Re: New short story in process
« Reply #36 on: July 28, 2017, 01:05:44 PM »
Heheh, ya.  His writing instructor warned him not to let Bob's character become purely a vehicle for exposition, something commonly referred to as a "talking head".  So Jim went and made him a literal talking head.   ;D

Not to mention that the writing community has long had a phrase describing the infodumping talking heads: "As you know, Bob..." :D
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Offline Quantus

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Re: New short story in process
« Reply #37 on: July 28, 2017, 01:09:29 PM »
Not to mention that the writing community has long had a phrase describing the infodumping talking heads: "As you know, Bob..." :D
haha, didnt know that one, Nice!
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Offline Rasins

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Re: New short story in process
« Reply #38 on: July 28, 2017, 04:36:09 PM »
Oh, Q, you need to watch some more of Jim's talks.  They are HUGELY entertaining.

My goal one day is to get Jim to do a reading of Bob.  I'm told his voice for Bob is hilarious.
At times I wish I had a clone, but then I realize, I could never live with that a-hole.

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Offline lynde4

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Re: New short story in process
« Reply #39 on: July 30, 2017, 10:56:34 PM »
Well, in the long term Peace Talks, but a Mouse/Maggie story for in between is okay. I mean, we still don't know a lot about Maggie and the short might clear a bit of that up.