Chrys Cymri's Blog - Posts Tagged "advice"

The Curse of the Infodump

'Captain’s Log Stardate 69178.6 So we can get on with the action, here’s the story to date. Our main character has lost her family to attack donuts in our previous adventure, and after burying her father she now has sworn revenge on confectionary everywhere…'

How is an author to bring a reader up to speed at the start of a book?

I think we all expect a certain amount of exposition at the start of a sequel. Even if we have come fresh off the first novel, we realise that some people will be starting the story with the second (or subsequent) ones. Or perhaps it's been awhile since even we read the first one, so it's useful to be reminded of what has happened thus far.

But I've been noting what seems to be an increasing amount of infodump even in first novels. And not only from those new to writing and/or self-publishing. Even established, professional writers seem to be front loading the first couple of chapters with long paragraphs telling us where the character has got to in their journey and how they feel about it.

All this feels, well, clumsy to me. When I was preparing my two previously professionally published novels, 'Dragons Can Only Rust' and 'Dragon Reforged' for self publication, my re-read reminded me that I had originally written the story as one novel. Due to the manuscript length, the publisher had decided to split the novel in two, and I was asked to produce extra material for the second novel. I also had to write a prologue and ensure that the first chapter of the second novel helped to bring in readers who hadn't read the first novel.

What I wrote feels a bit awkward to me now, but I wanted to reissue the books pretty much as they had been published before, so I left all this in place. However, neither book in 'The Four Kingdoms' sequence had been published before. So as I edited 'The Unicorn Throne', the book which follows 'The Dragon Throne', I felt free to work through the exposition and try to make it feel more natural rather than an infodump.

I think there are three ways to bring readers up to speed. The first, and easiest, is to provide a chunk of exposition. The genius of Star Trek was the invention of the ‘Captain’s Log’, which enabled a scene to be set with little fuss. Writers have often used this method, and it has been accepted.

Or, at least, accepted in the past. I think that modern readers, who spend much time also watching TV or movies, are used to much faster exposition and scenes. Compare the newer ‘Doctor Who’ series to the original and you can immediately see that the older series takes much more time, not only on separate scenes, but also to tell the story.

So a newer method is to smuggle background into dialogue. This can be done very clumsily. ‘I know that you’ve never forgiven that donut for smothering your father in jelly, but was it really necessary for you to throw that family of custard creams out of the airlock before we destroyed their ship? And now we’re on the run from the Jelly Donut Alliance and our water stores are running out.’

I’ve been trying out a third option. When reworking ‘The Unicorn Throne,’ I’ve tried to put the information into dialogue but in such a way that it reveals something about the characters at the same time. The conversation not only helps or reminds readers what has happened thus far, it also shows something about the relationship between the characters having the dialogue.

Whether I’ve done so successfully will be up to the readers to decide… Here are the first couple of pages. ‘The Unicorn Throne’ will be available in November. Here are the first couple of pages. Why not click on the ‘follow’ button here on Goodreads so you can be told when the book is available?
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‘And these knights, Your Majesty,’ Pealla said, moving one of the markers across the board, ‘could be placed along the border here, with messengers to advise us once King Anton begins his move.’

Fianna nodded as the Colonel released the small pewter knight, then glanced up from the map of the Four Kingdoms at the knights. When she’d been younger, she’d played at planning battles, moving her troops against the Third Kingdom. Now that war might be truly coming, she knew that the capture of a marker meant blood and death. The General and his first officer seemed unperturbed at the eventuality, and Arwan even looked cheerful. Of course, they were all at least twice her age, and she was the one who had chosen to fight rather than accept Anton’s terms for the merger of their kingdoms.

Abruptly she pushed away from the table, marching across the wooden floors to the large window. The thin glass panes held back little of the winter chill, and Fianna crossed her arms over her chest as she studied the courtyard below. The horses had had their morning exercise, and most were back in their stables, a wooden building which rested against the castle walls. In the otherwise empty exercise yard the Prancer was circling the long fence, his strides smooth and strong.

‘There was a time,’ Pealla said at her shoulder, ‘when you enjoyed discussing battle plans.’

Fianna looked up at the older woman. ‘That was before knights died in my service.’ She glanced away. ‘As you nearly did.’

‘But I did not.’ Boot heel scraped against floorboards as Pealla too looked out the window. ‘I have your Champion to thank for that.’

The Prancer had increased his pace to a gallop. Those either free of or hiding from their duties stood nearby, watching as the unicorn's muscles rippled under his light grey coat. Silver horn gleamed even in the dim day, and ivory tail flicked against a blast of wind. Sand flew from silver hooves as he neatly changed direction. Fianna smiled as several stable hands shook their heads in disbelief. The Prancer might now be larger than any stallion in the stables, but he was many times as nimble, and he made even the best bred horse appear an ordinary nag.

‘If only he would agree to breed one of our mares,’ Pealla mused beside her. The second-in-command of the royal armies was descended from a family of horse breeders.

‘Have you asked him?’

Pealla smiled. ‘That I did. And he pointed out that he had as little wish to cover an equine mare as a human would. Horses, he informed me, are a different and lesser species than the People of the Trees.’

Fianna shared a smile with the Colonel, easily imagining the unicorn's haughty tone. ‘His pride will be his undoing.’

The unicorn finally slowed to a trot, then a walk. A dark-haired man detached himself from the watchers, hurrying up to the Prancer with a blanket which he threw over the broad back. The unicorn obviously made a remark. Jeremy grinned, then laughed, reaching up to punch the grey-white shoulder. ‘My squire has an easy way with my Champion,’ Fianna said.

‘Aye,’ Pealla replied, with a mother’s quiet pride in her son. Then she nodded back at the map on the table. ‘Your Majesty, shall we continue?’

‘I still think we are ill-advised to meekly await an attack,’ Jerome growled. The General hulked at the opposite end of the table, his broad shoulders reminding Fianna of the Sacred Mountains. He could be just as immovable. ‘Anton broke guest law. He dared to raise sword against a delegation which entered his city and castle at his invitation. We should avenge this insult to our Queen and our Kingdom. Anton might have the greater number of knights, but if we can gain the dragons and the unicorns to our banner--’

‘But we would still be at the disadvantage if we took war to them.’ Fianna strode back to the table. ‘Remember what I’ve told you. Anton has devices under Primus castle which were designed by our ancestors to fight the Family and the People.’

Jerome shrugged. ‘You spoke of metal carriages and silver cages.’

‘Tanks,’ Fianna corrected. ‘And the cage once held the herd. Anton plans to ensure that all the magic goes from the Land, and that would affect dragons and unicorns. We do better to let him bring battle to us, to a place of our choosing.’

The door suddenly slammed open, oak hitting rock with a clang that made all the occupants of the room start, hands reaching for swords. None of them relaxed as Lady Sallah glared at the meeting. ‘What matter are dragons and unicorns?’ she demanded, thumping the end of her cane against the floor in emphasis. ‘Why not ally ourselves to the Third Kingdom against the beasts, even as King Anton invited?’

Fianna ignored the various gasps and grimaces at her aunt’s blasphemy. The green eyes, a shade darker than her own, narrowed slightly. Fianna felt herself slip back into memory, of other times when that same hard gaze had halted her in mid-argument. ‘We will not,’ she said slowly, fighting against the usual knot of fear in her stomach whenever she dared to go against Sallah, ‘betray those to whom we are linked by blood and by oath.’

‘Even if it means war?’ Sallah demanded, lowering herself into a chair beside Jerome.

‘Yes,’ Fianna said, fuming inwardly that more words would not come.

‘The Queen has spoken, my lady,’ Pealla said firmly. ‘We must turn our thoughts on how to convince the Family and the People to join our cause.’

‘If these unicorns have any sense of honour,’ Jerome growled, ‘they will leave their ties to the Third Kingdom and ally themselves to us.’

‘And their heir is your Champion,’ Arwan added.

Fianna unwillingly returned to the table. ‘The unicorns are still allied to the Third Kingdom.’

‘Did the Prancer not renounce that tie when King Anton betrayed guest law?’ Pealla asked.

‘Many things were said.’

‘Enough to bind the unicorns to us?’

‘The Prancer is the son of the Herd Stallion, the Dancer,’ Fianna admitted. ‘But there are matters to be resolved between them both, if and when he finally returns to the herd. He blames his sire for the death of his mother, who was twin to the Dancer.’

Pealla shrugged. ‘There is no shame to the breeding of brother and sister. It is rare, but I have known breeders to do so with horses.’

‘He’s not a horse. And his dam was most likely unwilling.’ Fianna smiled bitterly. ‘I know what it’s like, to feel betrayed by one’s own sire.’

I’m still getting used to the life of a self-published author, particularly in this age of Amazon and customer reviews. Authors are advised that books need to have reviews, the more reviews the better, even those which are not entirely positive.

In order to obtain those reviews, I’ve been involved in various ‘review exchanges.’ I read one writer’s book and post a review, and s/he does the same with one of mine. Better yet are the non-reciprocal reviews set up by groups on Goodreads, in which people sign up for a review round and the moderator ensures that you are not reviewing the work of someone who is reading your book. This is to ensure complete honesty.

So I’ve been reading a lot of self-published work. Some of the books have been real finds, and I’ve enjoyed them. Others... Sadly I’ve had to leave some less than complimentary reviews, for various reasons.

One of the greatest failings of these books, which have not been screened by any professional publishing process, is the emphasis on telling the reader. In great detail. The advice to writers is always, ‘Show, don’t tell.’ But many writers seem to ignore this. There are long paragraphs telling us exactly how the character is feeling, rather than finding some way to show us these emotions by means of what the characters does and says.

There are several levels to telling versus showing. For example, one could write, ‘Sarah glared at John, annoyed at his interruptions.’ There may be no need to state that she’s annoyed, if the dialogue earlier showed his multiple interruptions, and ‘glared’ already indicates this. Better yet might be indication her feelings by dialogue. ‘Sarah glared at John. “Maybe you could let me finish a sentence once in awhile?”’

Perhaps writers fear to trust that the reader can fill in the gaps. If a piece of dialogue ends in an exclamation mark, I don’t think there’s any need to add, ‘he shouted’, never mind, ‘he shouted angrily.’ If we have the line of dialogue, ‘Look out!’ I don’t think there’s any need to add, ‘she shouted in warning.’ Again, surely that’s obvious?

It’s made me more aware of showing versus telling in my own writing. In my most recent novel, ‘Penny White and the Temptation of Dragons’ (to be released in April), I was very conscious of trying to show rather than tell emotion. For example, Morey, the small gryphon who has come into Penny’s life, is proving to be very annoying. In a scene in Morey’s room, I originally wrote this:

We were in the room he had decided to adopt as his own. The guest bedroom, of course, the second largest in the house. He was striding along one of the many bookshelves. ‘I read a lot,’ he said, tail whipping past the leather-bound volumes. ‘I left most back home.’
‘Even what you’ve brought is more than I own.’
‘Only because you fill your shelves with science fiction DVDs.’
His snobbery was beginning to eat away at my patience. ‘They’re easier to lift than your books.’
‘Have you read Summa Theologica? Simply magnificent.’
‘Don’t tell me. You have the whole set.’
‘Back home. I had expected any well read priest to have the Summa in her own library.’ He cocked his head. ‘You didn't offer me any wine.’

I worked with this scene because I felt there was no need to tell the reader that Morey was being a snob. The conversation made this very clear, I felt. Nor did I want to tell the reader that this was annoying Penny, at least not directly. So after some work, this is how the exchange now appears in the book:

We were in the room he had decided to adopt as his own. The guest bedroom, of course, the second largest in the house. He was striding along one of the many bookshelves. ‘I read a lot,’ he said, tail whipping past the leather-bound volumes. ‘I left most back home.’
‘Even what you’ve brought is more than I own.’
‘Only because you fill your shelves with science fiction DVDs.’
‘They’re easier to lift than your books,’ I pointed out.
‘Have you read Summa Theologica? Simply magnificent.’
‘Don’t tell me. You have the whole set.’
‘Back home. I had expected any well read priest to have the Summa in her own library.’
I was tempted to find out how many volumes of the Summa it took to squash a small gryphon. ‘I can always look it up on-line.’
Morey cocked his head. ‘You didn't offer me any wine.’

I like this so much better. Not only have I shown Penny’s annoyance, there’s a reference back to the books in question. And she gets in a retort of her own.

But that doesn’t mean I always get it right. In ‘The Dragon Throne,’ I tried to give early clues that the setting wasn’t on Earth. There are references to two moons, for example. Above all, the length of the year is different than on Earth. So although the main female character, Fianna, is referred to as being eleven years old at the start of the book, in Earth terms she is actually nearly fourteen. As I tried to indicate in what Fianna’s father says to her outside her mother’s rooms.

‘Take one last look.’ Her father’s soft voice startled Fianna. She glanced at him, but Stannard was studying the room. ‘Fourteen months have passed since I placed my seal on wet plaster outside this door. But the seasons turn on, and the year is soon over. This is the last time we will see this place as she left it. Tomorrow, all must change. Will you want these rooms?’

From the summaries given by some reviewers, however, I think I might have been too subtle. People seem to take it for granted that she’s the age stated as in Earth terms, not taking into account that a year on this other world is actually fourteen months long. *sigh* Maybe I needed to find a way to tell that more directly.

There are times when sensitively handled telling is required. I remember my confusion the first time I read Douglas Adams’ ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.’ I was a fifteen year old living in California. I had no idea what a ‘zebra crossing’ was or why the name ‘Ford Prefect’ would be a good disguise (there was never a Ford model by that name in the USA). So after a beta reader for ‘The Temptation of Dragons’ asked what a ‘chemist’ was, I went through the book and tried to ensure that there was explanation for English cultural references. For ‘chemist,’ all I needed to add was, ‘to pick up some medicine’ to make that clear. Simple.

I’m continuing my review exchanges, and I’ve decided to smile at the worst instances of telling rather than showing. To date, my ‘winner’ in the telling stakes is probably this line, from a book and writer I shall not identify:

‘The stars were out in the dark sky. He so enjoyed taking his nocturnal strolls every night.’

Well, quite. Wouldn’t work during the daytime, would it?

One way for a writer to obtain reviews for a book is to agree to do reviews for other writers. The advice is that you need reviews in order to entice someone to buy your book, and also that very few readers will take the time to leave a review (no matter how nicely you ask!).

I’ve been involved in ‘review rounds’ organised by a group on Goodreads. Ten authors sign up, and the moderator ensures that there are no reciprocal reviews. You agree to read/review four books in return for four other people reading/reviewing yours.

Some of the review rounds have been in a specific genre. Others have been ‘open.’ So I’ve found myself reading historicals, romances, and even a children’s book along the way.

What I’ve discovered, now that I’ve been forced to read outside my preferred genres, is I don’t mind what the book is, so long as there is a character arc. Let the setting be in an alternative Japanese history, or an 18th century melodrama, or a small town in the 1970’s. If I find the characters engaging, if I can see (rather than be told) them change during the course of the tale, then I can take pleasure in a wide variety of settings.

Conversely, if the characters remain static for the course of the book, it doesn’t matter if the novel fits into my preferred reading material. I want to go on a (sometimes metaphorical) journey with the person I’m reading about. If I finish the last page and what s/he has been through hasn’t changed her/him in some way, then I find myself wondering why I’d bothered.

When I wrote my first two novels, my inspiration for character change was the singer/songwriter Dan Fogelberg. I had many of his CDs, and I was intrigued as to how his voice had changed during his career. My thought was, ‘I want Gonard’s voice to change during the course of his travels.’ Not literally, actually, but in the way he would go from cowering in front of humans to a willingness to challenge them.

For my next two novels, ‘The Dragon Throne’ and ‘The Unicorn Throne,’ I knew the beginning and the end point for the characters, so writing their arcs seemed to come easily. Forgiveness features across the story of both Fianna and the Prancer. Both of them act in foolish ways, because they’re young. Part of growing up is to realise that your parents make choices which they feel were for the best, even if you didn’t think so at the time. Both of the main characters learn from making their own mistakes that they can forgive their fathers for those mistakes which their fathers had made.

But those novels, and ‘The Judas Disciple’, were written to be more self contained than my new series. The first ‘Penny White’ has been published, I’m reaching finishing line on the second book, ‘The Cult of Unicorns’, and I have ideas for at least another three. So it’s a challenge to both provide some character development in each book, yet leave matters open ended for the next one. That might be why I loaded so much on Penny’s plate! For example, jer parents dying when she was a teenager, her husband drowning just a short while before the first book starts, an annoying younger brother for whom she is and yet is not a mother. And the traditional romantic triangle, although perhaps not entirely traditional as the sexy ‘bad boy’ is a dragon.

The other challenge is to seed things into earlier novels which can then become important later on. The main idea for the fourth novel, ‘The Vengeance of Snails’, came to me while I was just about to publish ‘The Temptation of Dragons.’ So I was able to add an important point to the description of Clyde’s parent before I released the book.

Perhaps part of the challenge for me, personally, is that I haven’t read too many book series. The ‘Harry Potter’ books, of course, but those were able to develop the characters because the series followed them growing up. As a teenager I loved ‘The Dragonriders of Pern’ series, but the author’s attitudes towards women and gays now disturb me. I liked the first few books of the ‘Temeraire’ series by Naomi Novik, but these have become less interesting as the series has progressed.

So I’ve been making notes, and plotting story arcs, and trying to leave clues in earlier books which will make sense later on. But there’s only so much I can think of in advance. Or as my favourite Doctor once said, ‘Even I can’t play this many games at once!’ (Ghostlight, 1989)