We've all been told that data dumping is bad. Drags your reader right out of the story. But you do need to give your reader the information needed? I have always felt I did a good job of relying what I felt my readers needed without boring them with too much info.
I'm working on the next book in the series where my hero and heroine are battling timelines. Someone wants them apart, yet they keep finding each other, which makes the person trying to change things redo the timeline time and again. Secondary characters happened to be in a temporal ship so were aware of the change. After each change things reset and they find they have to explain things over and over.
It made me think. When is it too much? You have information you want to give your reader but how do you do it? If you just dump it on the page in one scene without a whole lot of anything else you could loose your reader. And what if you're like me where you working on the rough draft where they have to repeat the same info over and over? How do you make it creative? For now I'll dump it because my goal is words on the page. I can always fix it in my edits.
What I have learned from my past wroks is to weave it in. Sometimes you have to give some information right up front, but I love it when I can give a little of ther information through out the story. Each story is going to be different and some time you will have to give the information needed right up front, but always try to figure out the best way for your characters to give the information without boring your reader.
I'm working on the next book in the series where my hero and heroine are battling timelines. Someone wants them apart, yet they keep finding each other, which makes the person trying to change things redo the timeline time and again. Secondary characters happened to be in a temporal ship so were aware of the change. After each change things reset and they find they have to explain things over and over.
It made me think. When is it too much? You have information you want to give your reader but how do you do it? If you just dump it on the page in one scene without a whole lot of anything else you could loose your reader. And what if you're like me where you working on the rough draft where they have to repeat the same info over and over? How do you make it creative? For now I'll dump it because my goal is words on the page. I can always fix it in my edits.
What I have learned from my past wroks is to weave it in. Sometimes you have to give some information right up front, but I love it when I can give a little of ther information through out the story. Each story is going to be different and some time you will have to give the information needed right up front, but always try to figure out the best way for your characters to give the information without boring your reader.
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