Sometimes, you just really need to info dump. The characters have made a discovery and must now explore its full significance—and if they don’t, the readers are going to be totally lost.
Are you totally lost by the generalizations there? Let’s try it this way: Indiana Jones and faithful sidekick Sallah finally get someone to examine the inscription on the medallion—but we know the Germans have already done so and are currently digging at the appointed spot. Basically, we’re watching someone watching someone reading something. Yeah, the bad guys already have it—and they’re using it. No tension. Audience nodding off.
In the story conference for Raiders (I can’t believe I’ve never linked to this before; this is great stuff!), creator George Lucas, director Steven Spielberg and screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan came to the same conclusion. They had to get this information to the audience, and there didn’t seem to be a better way to do it.
And then they hit on the solution. Do you remember? Maybe not. Without watching it again, all I remember is the German staff is the wrong height and—“Bad dates.” They added a situation in the background to enhance the tension—poisoned food which Indy comes perilously close to eating several times.
Mystery Man, in a column at the Story Department, talked about this kind of exposition (emphasis added):
What’s to be learned from this example? Great exposition is always in the context of something else. A scene should never be about exposition only. You should feed the exposition in the context of some other scenario that’s going on in the scene whether its poisoned food that’s eaten by a bad secret agent monkey or whether it’s something else interesting going on between the characters, such as a contest of wills, a budding love story, or perhaps exposition that’s being told to a secretly bad character who will use that information against the protagonists.
This also requires giving the audience more info—a look into the kitchen, a scene where we see this character is really in cahoots with a major baddie. That kind of info can often be dramatized, of course, but this is another example of the “give the audience more information” philosophy that Alfred Hitchcock pointed out created suspense. It’s letting the reader take a peek under the tablecloth or watch the baddies planting the bomb there, and suddenly, everything else they talk about is fraught with tension.
What do you think? How else can you imbue an almost-info-dump with more tension?
Photo by Yasmin & Arye Photographers
Read this boring inscription or die!
Never thought of it that way.
In the short story I’m working on there’s a ton of backstory that’s critical to the story. But in a short story, obviously every word counts, so I want to make it more important.
Hi Jordan–Thanks for the link!
Mystery Man’s great, isn’t he? He has a column now at the Story Department, too.
The thing about short stories, Andrew, is that they’re so short they actually need more explanations than novels, where you can lead the reader through the actual scenes that show the essential information. I wrote about this on my magazine a week or so ago, ranting about “Brokeback Mountain.” So the problem becomes not only to make every word count, but to do it with a certain inescapable amount of exposition.
When you have a lot of backstory, sometimes the best thing to do is a flashback. Or more than one. And if you’re doing this in a short story, it turns into two overlapping stories, so it’s essential that you plan out the structure very carefully to make sure you give your main story—the one you’re writing this for—top billing. It can be really exciting and effective to do this kind of story. You get a fantastic one-two punch climax if you line them up just right.
Good luck!
Hey Victoria! I was hoping MM’s column was a regular feature. Great advice—thanks for stopping by!