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Old 08-29-2010, 10:48 AM   #10
Vintage Season
Pulps and dime novels...
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Join Date: Jan 2009
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Quote:
Originally Posted by CaraM View Post
To keep saying the same thing over and over is something called "info dump" which is to let the reader know what's going on. But if you're telling a good story, it should unfold naturally and you don't need to hit the reader over the head.
Sorry, but you have presented an incorrect definition. Although some form of "infodump" is usually necessary to help the reader understand the full gravity of the situation, the process of saying the same thing over and over is simply called "repetition."

From the Turkey City Lexicon:
Infodump
Large chunk of indigestible expository matter intended to explain the background situation. Info-dumps can be covert, as in fake newspaper or “Encyclopedia Galactica” articles, or overt, in which all action stops as the author assumes center stage and lectures. Info-dumps are also known as “expository lumps.” The use of brief, deft, inoffensive info-dumps is known as “kuttnering,” after Henry Kuttner. When information is worked unobtrusively into the story’s basic structure, this is known as “heinleining.”
- M.
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