Too much detail !!

[OneandonlyDoc]

Originally Posted by Penforhire

Infodumps are tricky. We all prefer to see details skillfully woven into dialog and action or otherwise distributed in a way to avoid drawing attention to it. Some authors do quite well up to a point and then step over the line. I happened to recently read John Scalzi's Old Man's War trilogy recently. I started off impressed with his weaving and then, at times, it fell on its face.

That's probably a testament to how difficult it can be to interweave description, history, and dialogue.

[RolandD]

I think some readers enjoy the detail. Let authors write what they want. If readers don't like it, their books won't sell.

[crich70]

Originally Posted by OneandonlyDoc

That's probably a testament to how difficult it can be to interweave description, history, and dialogue.

I think that's one of the reasons why learning how to write is known as 'learning one's craft' rather than some other term. Anyone can write if they put their minds to it, but writing well is something that takes more than just a pen and paper. Mark Twain said it well,"The difference between the right word and the almost right word is like the difference between lightning and the lightning bug."

[Eisengoth]

Originally Posted by Penforhire

Some authors do quite well up to a point and then step over the line. I happened to recently read John Scalzi's Old Man's War trilogy recently. I started off impressed with his weaving and then, at times, it fell on its face.

I've only read the first of Scalzi's trilogy... I really need to get the others. I enjoyed "Old Man's War", but I felt like the first third was really the best. The whole introduction was very well-played, but when it began to tread on the actual military side, it didn't seem quite as sharp. "Fell on its face", as you say. Still quite an enjoyable read, overall, however!

[carpetmojo]

Originally Posted by crich70

True, and there is also James Michener who wrote a good many books with a lot of detail included. Just goes to prove that any rule of writing can be bent if the writer is skillful enough I guess.

Yes, I should have put in a proviso something along the lines of "unnecesssary/extraneous" detail. Oh, and "boring" !

There you go - a skillful writer can give detail, but in a way that gets you interested, and supports the story, and a writer like Michener can sustain it over a long haul. Edward Rutherford (Srum, Stonehenge London etc..) is another I admire for the same reason, and there's bags of detail in his work - but it doesn't seem like it.

I read almost all the Michener canon a while ago, and I think he gave me my liking for something you can really get immersed in - but long tomes are immeasurably harder to pull off.

[EileenG]

One of my favourite authors was Georgette Heyer, who was a master at weaving in huge amounts of historical and social detail into your story, but you were so busy following the adventures of the dashing hero and feisty heroine that you never noticed you were being educated in the process.

I'm astonished at how much I still know about the politics, fashion, finances and social habits of that period twenty years after reading them.

[Penforhire]

I am currently awed by the mastery of David Brin's technique in "Kiln People." I'm maybe halfway through it and at no point do I feel infodumped upon. Yet he is constantly hitting me with slang and details of a near-future vision, not to mention he's working a hoary old SF trope and not boring me!