Suppose a character is thinking about something, something that the reader hasn't been introduced to yet but the character is well used to and doesn't spend too much time thinking about.

According to many critiques I've seen below in the Fragment review forums, a detailed infodump is required immediately after mentioning something, anything a character thinks--even if it bears no real concern to the character's immediate circumstance.

The frustration I find is that the critiques are grilled towards extricating every single bit of information as quickly as possible, up front, no matter what the setting may be. Not every character has to have their full name, personality, role, rich background and description given with their introduction to the plot--unless you're actually Robert Jordan.

The case is even more muddled when it comes to casual thoughts from the MC. Put yourself in the MC's place--when you casually think about something that you're already well-acquainted with, do you actually go through a detailed analysis of that thought, making certain not to miss anything?

Of course not. And to do so right at the beginning of a story, right when things begin happening, is a rigorous example of over-explanation.

Telling the audience what the characters know is crucial, I understand. But it doesn't have to be done within the first 13 lines of a story. To tell the truth, it probably shouldn't be done within the first 13. Look at Ender's Game, for crying out loud. You couldn't ask for a vaguer beginning than Graff and Anderson's conversation. If that snippet were posted here, it would be blasted apart in a heartbeat. Yet without the vague, ambiguous chapter bumps, OSC's masterpiece would be incomplete.

You can't ask for a story's worth of exposition within 13 lines. Give posters a chance to breathe, get down to business, and explain their world when it applies to the story at hand.

Most of the critiques here bring out those questions - the ones raised by the first 13. Some of us say directly, and some imply, that answers should be forthcoming, but don't have to be in the first 13. I see questions in the crits as a checklist of things to be covered sooner or later. Introductory things like character relationships should be covered sooner. Resolution of the conflict, of course, takes the whole story. Most critics point out the need for a quick, close association with the MC in a short story - a novel has more time for any information development. A name is vital to the reader's association along with some indication of personality that leads to attachment - sympathy, antipathy, endearment ...

In the "writing lessons" on OSC's website, he repeatedly makes the point that the author must tell what the POV character knows, the information should be told when the reader needs to know it, and showing is better than telling. The passing thought about known information is only relevant at that moment if it causes the character to decide on a course of action. In that case, that's when the reader needs to know. If the information was worked into the story before that point, there's no need for an infodump - only a reference that explains how the information led to the decision. If the passing thought has no relevance to the story, why would it be written at all?

When someone tells you that you're giving an infodump, that really means that your prose reads too much like a textbook. You may be able to characterize or give information more naturally.

When someone tells you that they need more information, that really means that you've raised something that looks important, and then ignored it. You may know more than the reader does, and not realize that they need to know it; or you may have been working on a problem of imagery (or created a "little darling") and not realize that the reader really doesn't need it.

And that's just when the critiquer is good. Sometimes you'll get a prescriptivist who will beat you up when the text is just fine. That's why you should never trust one person's opinion until you know his limitations as a critiquer.

You're the author. You decide how seriously to take each bit of criticism. But definitely look for trends, and be sensitive to the fact that the author and reader see the story differently.

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Having said all that, I think it's reasonable to address the actual question of what's too much or too little information.

I think there's a difference between (a) not telling us everything about a character and situation, which would be impossible anyway, and (b) not telling us stuff that's relevant to this character and her immediate situation.

quote:

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Mara sat on the pile of charred skulls. The boy came to sit down next to her, offering her an amulet. She refused it and put her head into her hands.

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This has potential: skulls? An amulet? "The boy"? But I don't know what's going on, and I'm frustrated by not knowing what's happening, even though I'm being told about stuff.

quote:

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The charred skulls of her fellow villagers had been heaped into a pile by the Vlinian marauders. Mara climbed on top of them and sat down. The boy -- she had found him crouched in a cupboard after the attack -- sat down next to her. He offered her an amulet. Her tribe didn't wear amulets, and its ornamentation was foreign. She refused it and put her head into her hands.

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This is better, I think, because it helps you understand the context of the pile of skulls, the relation of the boy to Mara, and her reasons for rejecting the amulet. I still don't know what the amulet is, but I know that it's foreign, so I know that Mara doesn't really know what it is, either.

It's not hard to go too far:

quote:

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Mara sat on the pile of charred skulls. The Vlinians, part of the intergalactic Darcarian empire, had destroyed her village, Oranda, last night.

The boy sat down next to her. She had found him in a cupboard after the attack -- son of a priest of Orahar, chief god of Oranda, by the tattoos on his hands -- and he had followed her, mute, for that night and the rest of the day. He offered her an amulet, a blue and gold disc on a golden chain. It ornamentation was foreign, and she feared that it was Vlinian. She refused it and put her head in her hands.

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Here you get more data, but (a) some of it's out of her POV and therefore not helpful, and (b) it stops the flow of words and jars the reader.

Do I need to know right this moment that he's the son of a priest? (Truth be told? Maybe I do. But I made him a priest's son after I wrote the second example.)

Or the name of the chief god of Oranda? (Almost certainly not.)

Or the name of the village? (Would be nice to know, but only if it comes naturally. The first two examples use "the village", giving the impression that from her POV, this is the center of the universe -- much like people from the New York City area say "the city".

Or the fact that the Vlinians are part of the Darcarian empire? (The Vlinians are the ones who attacked her, so if they have an independent enough identity I'd say "no". Even if the Vlinians are a tiny part of the Darcarian empire, if the POV character knows them as Vlinians, then they're just Vlinians.) How about the fact that the Darcarian empire is intergalactic? (Not only do I not need it, but it ruins the somewhat primitive feel of the text.)

...and so on.

The worst case is getting the wrong details inserted and the right details left out.

quote:

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Mara's face was dark with gloom. The Vlinians, part of the intergalactic Darcarian empire, had destroyed her village, Oranda, last night. They had been at war for as long as she could remember.

The boy, son of a priest of Orahar, chief god of Oranda, sat down next to her. He offered her an amulet, a blue and gold disc on a golden chain. She refused it and put her head in her hands.

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Now I get none of the emotion (the pile of skulls, the orphaned boy, the tattoos that make his priestly inheritance vivid, etc.) except for the stuff I tell ("dark with gloom"), and I get all of the data. Yuck. It's like reading an encyclopedia.

It's a balance. I'm not sure how to tell you how to strike it -- I think you have to figure it out. You do that by listening to all the criticism you get, but not taking it too much to heart.

infodumping is not needed. Clues are needed.

For example.

Johnny sprinted away from the building. As Johnny ran his mind raced ahead to the rest of the plan. They'll never catch me now, he thought. Cutting into an alley he found the spare clothes he had stashed and quickly modified his appearance.

These are four sentences to what could be a 1)mystery 2)crime thriller 3)spy thriller 4)YA thriller 5)sci-fi 6)urban fantasy 7)etc.

I say this because right now we just have "meat." Maybe lots of interesting meat but still its just "meat." Clues like johnny's age, appearance, gender, sexuality help.

As does telling us who "they" are. "They" are important to this story, at least to the characterization, or "they" shouldn't be mentioned at all.

Likewise these clues are important to letting the reader know how meat is fillet mignon or a KC porterhouse or a NY strip steak and not potted meat.

Now novels have longer (2-3 page IMO) than short stories (I generally accept the first 13 arguments) to develop the story but its better to not withhold things.

POV is important but don't treat your POV character as if they need to hide something from the reader. The POV character should be the reader's ally in the story even if you shift POV characters.

Exposition is important but summary narration (often in the form of info dumping) at times is really more of a problem than a benefit. Direct narration helps with exposition by giving context and 'between the lines' meanings rather than just information.

The point is, aside from differing individual preferences, I guess most of us doing the critiquing are still learning and probably tend to focus critiques on the things we've most recently learned as "rules" for openings, or rules for other facets of fiction.

Another thing to consider is that by the nature of the F&F forums, the perfect "first thirteen" has been elevated to some sort of a Holy Grail status and examined in extraordinary detail, some might argue to a disproportionate degree.

I've changed the way I approach critiquing here a lot. I look at the piece as a reader, and determine whether the sample engages me. For that I want to be immersed in the POV of a character to the point we're "introduced", and for a short story want to see the charater starting to do something for a reason. As a reader I can (and prefer to) wait for exposition until I "know" a character and his immediate situation. For a first 13 that usually means little more than a sentence or a couple phrases of exposition works best.

So that's what I comment on. Is there a clear POV character? Is this character engaged in something that I care about (am interested in)? Is the story in motion by the end of the 13?

But that's just me. Others, I know, want different things jammed into the first 5-10 sentences.

Mark's revised 13 in this thread: http://www.hatrack.com/forums/writers/forum/Forum11/HTML/002631.html
are just great. If you look at my comments, yes I still had questions but they were ones that would keep me reading or were plausibility ones (too many of them and I stop reading). BUT the reason I would read on was in those 13 lines, I had an MC that I liked, a situation, a setting and an idea of the stakes - MC's about to be arrested. IMHO, even with the few nits that was as close as I've seen in a long time to a near perfect first 13.

The trick is balancing the info needed right now and the progress of the story. I nearly put Ender's Game [/b] down the first time I picked it up because of the Graff/Anderson conversation. But since it was clearly outside the main narration, I trusted the writing enough to wait on the explaination.

[i] Wild Seed's like that too. Doro references first seeing "the women" and then there is a discussion about his village. Since Doro didn't think much about her when he first sees her, it made sense his thoughts went back to what was important to him: someone had raided his village. BUT the writing and character was so compelling, I could trust that the connection between Doro and "the woman" would be made in a short span of time.

So, yes, your feelings and thoughts are right. We are tough here and you have to balance what feedback you get with the elements you know are important. IF someone says - infodump - it is usually a bit of exposition that gets in the way of the flow of your story either because it stops all action or because it is information that isn't necessary to the reader right that instant.

quote:

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According to many critiques I've seen below in the Fragment review forums, a detailed infodump is required immediately after mentioning something, anything a character thinks--even if it bears no real concern to the character's immediate circumstance

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Isn't accurate. If the POV mentions the Band of Inscruitable ERM's is after him, a reader does need to know (briefly) what the heck that is. They don't need a lecture on the founding of it. Whereas, if you call something "the Minestry of Magic" it seems to be self-explaintory and doesn't furrow and eyebrow. I need to know the details that make the first 13 clear. An unfamilar term requires some context or explaination.

1) A character I can relate to -- love/hate -- and why. I don't need to know everything about them, just enough to know who they are: Name,voice (by this I mean the way they think/speak), and some clue of what their story is about (for short stories especially). If this is accomplished without intentionally withholding information that will help me see through the MC's eyes, I'll be satisfied as a reader/critiquer.

2) What milieu it is. Not every detail, but enough to know where (City, Country, Battlefield, etc) and when (What time period) it takes place. This much will satisfy me. Details can work themselves into a story along the way.

quote:

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Suppose a character is thinking about something, something that the reader hasn't been introduced to yet but the character is well used to and doesn't spend too much time thinking about.

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I can accept a snipet of thought, so long as it doesn't stop the flow of the story, or stand out as unrelated to the situation. If it makes me stop and wonder, and you don't expand on it (within a few pages) you will have batrayed me. Is the information necessary to be considered at this point in the story? That's the question I pose to you.

quote:

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The case is even more muddled when it comes to casual thoughts from the MC.

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The problem is that mundane (casual) thoughts do not belong at the beginning of a story. Too many mundane thoughts turn me off to the tale, anyway. I would ask myself "Do these mundane thoughts progress either the story or the character?" Chances are, if they do, they're short.

quote:

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Look at Ender's Game, for crying out loud. You couldn't ask for a vaguer beginning than Graff and Anderson's conversation.

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I used to have my problems with this, too, until I realized that he was actually telling us a lot. You don't realize it until much later. And, I treated this like the chapter snipets in Dune, not so much part of the chapters as story. Examine closely what is exposed in those thirteen lines, and you may see things differently.

quote:

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You can't ask for a story's worth of exposition within 13 lines.

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That's My take.

The questions are meant to be questions for the writer to ponder. They aren't always meant to say, "You MUST answer this!"

I find in my critiques that most of the questions are irrelevant: either answered very quickly, or not important due to some unseen factor. That's fine, and I no longer feel the need to explain that to the critiquers. My new axiom is that I don't need to defend my 1-13. I only need to consider the questions and feedback, and choose if I'm going to act or not act. (Though sometimes, it doesn't hurt to offer a bit of an explanation--especially if it will help you to see their reaction. It may turn out to be more serious than you realized.)

One thing about questions, from a critiquer's stand: be gentle. There's a difference between honest and brutally honest. One critiquer once said to me, 'I HATE such-and-such.' It was another irrelevance, if I remember right. What bothered me was that they hated it. Was that just one person's personal nit, or was it really that bad? It was never changed, because I never saw it as that serious within context of the story. Still, it bothered me for a long time because the language was so strong. Critiquers need to remember they don't see the whole thing, and their questions should inspire thought--not strong emotion and defensive attitudes.

(There's my rant)

The first thirteen can be misleading. More than once, I've been led astray and become discouraged by the opening. In the end, I realized I was trying to answer all the questions and I didn't need to do it.

I think a writer should realize that a critter's remarks means he has been disrupted, but the critter isn't omniscient regarding the writer's intentions, so the response a critter gives is mostly about symptoms, not necessarily root problems.

For example, when they get irritated that you seem to be withholding information, it might be that you are, indeed, withholding information that is central to the situation and the experience of the character as well as relevant to the events at hand (a common mistake)--and that would be bad. But it might also mean the writer has given a false impression of what is important or relevant. It could indicate that the writer has not composed a suitable state-of-mind of the POV character or narrator to allow them to "suspend" the information. The problems the critters point to require deeper thinking into what the writer is trying to accomplish, and there are several things that should be considered.

How are you handling active knowledge vs. latent knowledge? What is the focus of the character amidst the relevant things he's aware of? What is the character's degree of certainty about the relevant knowledge? Does the narrator know more about the situation than the POV character? Is the POV character's perception very fragmented (requiring some intervention of the narration to make it coherent)? Is the POV character or narrator psychologically avoiding thinking about something? Is the narrator (as Agatha Christie notoriously and controversially arranged) intentionally deceiving the reader?

This is by no means a complete list, but each of these things require a certain amount of loving care to make them work, and a failure to get them right will disrupt the reader with telling symptoms. The symptoms are telling you to "think some more" about what you are doing, because something could be (and probably is) wrong with it.

All that being said--sometimes you just have to irritate or disrupt a reader. There are always trade-offs and risks with what you do, and if the choice is to risk putting off the reader or to not write the story that you think is worthwhile--take the risk. But I recommend you take most crits seriously in order to help the success of your intentions.

Don't forget, also, that there is room for mystery. Some readers have less tolerance of it than others, but mystery is generally a good thing. (Which is fortunate because it is really completely unavoidable.)

In my first 13 that kings_falcon links to above, one of the commenters mentions that he was unsure if my character was good or bad. I like having that level of mystery, and I don't feel obligated to inform the reader of it. My guy thinks he's good and decent, but if the reader has some question about him, the reader will much more likely think about the situation I'm presenting him. It gives the reader something to *wonder* about, which is far superior to spoon feeding him a world view that he will easily discard or file away in his "I agree" slot without actually having mulled it over. (That's not to say that there isn't a very strong--even black and white--idea behind it.) The mystery engages the reader in the problems and encourages him to come to terms with the idea in a new way, rather than preaching to him by proxy.

The first 13 of the Hobbit describes Bilbo Baggins's hobbit hole. It violates every common piece of advice given as a rule by frequent f&f critiquers. But it follows the only rule that matters: engage the reader.

When a reader is not engaged, there are usually good reasons for why things are working well, and it is certainly valuable to explore these guidelines. They can be very helpful and make all the difference in the world on how well they engage the reader. This is especially true for beginners and guys like me who have a huge learning curve.

But from previous threads, you will find that I also avoid "absolute rules," and I agree that ultimately the goal is simply to get the reader engaged.

Action or conflict will hook me quicker but you can hook me without the appearance of either but then the writing needs to be amazing.

In tribute to WBriggs - also check this thread:
Why the First 13 isn't too short: http://www.hatrack.com/forums/writers/forum/Forum1/HTML/002662.html

This has been a GREAT discussion! Thanks for starting it s_merrell.

But here's a little advice to cool off your steaming ear canals (because I can SEE the steam shooting out of some of your ears ):

When critiquers seem to be asking questions, demanding that you give more, more, more information in that maddeningly short 13 lines, consider that the questions and demands are not necessarily what they expect from the first thirteen, but what you, as the writer, should address in the story VERY SOON. A first thirteen that leaves questions (NOT, however, questions of confusion) in the reader's mind, is a success because it indicates the reader wants more, more. That's good!

As far as your dilemma regarding the example you gave, the general rule of thumb is that if something is important enough to introduce in the story, it's important enough to explain. Does that mean you have to go into five paragraphs of detailed exposition? No. Usually a few words to help place the reader on the right mental track will suffice. (That's hard to do when you're penetrating your MC's mind as deeply as you imply, but do-able.) You can explain in greater detail later when the thing becomes more immediately important.

What happens in your reader's mind is this:

As you reveal things, the reader, quite quickly, forms a mental image--of meanings, plot points, and visualizations--of those things. If you then delay revealing details about it, and YOUR detail of it, when finally revealed, does not match the mental image your reader has been forming, it confuses the reader. You cannot afford to confuse the reader.

I see this happen mostly with physical descriptions (which, by the way, are almost totally unnecessary unless a physical feature is crucial to the story), but it can be just as problematic with ideas and plot points. When I have a mental image of the hero as having dark hair and eyes, 25 years old, male, and 'he' is later revealed to be blond, green-eyed, 13, and female...

An exaggeration, but not entirely.