A Fiction Writing No-No

There are a lot of little no-nos in fiction writing. One of them that is most irritating to a reader is the Information Dump. The reader is skipping merrily along in a story when she/he hits an information dump. Suddenly, the author has put in several paragraphs of information he/she thinks will be most interesting to the reader. 

But it isn't. It stops the progression of the story and could be a "who cares?" moment to the reader. 

For instance, if I'm writing an espionage story that takes place in Paris, a city I love, I might want the readers to see, through my eyes, the beauty of this city on the Seine. I might want them to know the history of the many wonderful buildings and museums and oh, so many things. So, as my protagonist is walking through Paris with a colleague, I might have them stop in front of the Louvre. The protagonist tells the other man the complete history of this famous museum and what he will find inside. Fine, but it has absolutely nothing to do with the story in which these two men are involved.

Let's go a bit further. The two men chase their spy to Brugge, Belgium where they trace him to a small house. Brugge is known for lovely handmade lace. Let's say the men knock on the door and a woman answers. She invites them in and offers them a seat, then picks up her lacemaking which she had been doing when the knock came. One man comments that the lace she is working on is lovely, and all of a sudden as if a switch had been thrown, the woman goes into a long commentary on the history of lace-making in Brugge. Again, it has nothing to do with the story. The reader is getting antsy by this time. The reader wants the men to look around the room for signs that their man had been there, or to suddenly hear a noise on the upper level of the house. The history of lace-making might be interesting but has nothing at all to do with the story. And again, it interrupts the pacing.

Another way an author gives us an information dump is to suddenly include a large chunk of backstory, taking the reader away from what was happening. It might be of some importance to the story and its outcome, but rather than take a timeout to give it to the reader, the author can feed the information in bits and pieces. It's much easier for the reader to digest, and don't worry, they'll 'get it.' 

If an author does this little no-no on a regular basis throughout a book, he/she will lose the readers very quickly. But, if the info about the Louvre in my first example is going to be important to what happens later, it's alright to use it, but not in huge chunks. Make a reference to this or that, but don't go off like a tour guide. 

That goes for the woman making lace, as well. If what she is doing bears importance to finding the spy, by all means, use it but not as if she was teaching a class on lace-making. Again, a few references are all that you need.

Why do some authors do this? I think it often has to do with someplace or something they like very much and want to share with others. If that's the case, fine, but write a nonfiction book about those places, don't dump it into your novel. 

Use information if it adds to your story or if it has a bearing on the outcome. Just remember to do it in small amounts. Don't deluge the reader with the history of the Eiffel Tower all at once.