Info-dumping, a few thoughts

When I did my first snapshots post (reviewing a small number of SFF samples) one thing that struck me was the varying approach taken by the authors when it comes to the problem of informing the reader about necessary backstory, without splurging information in a wall of text (info-dumping).

The background is, as the name suggests, just there as a backdrop for the action, it shouldn’t be the mainstay of the story. There’s only so much information people can, or want to, take on board at once. If you throw constant references to past events and new character names, keeping track becomes difficult. And reading for relaxation shouldn’t be about trying to remember a splurge of information.

There’s also a trade-off with pace. Beginnings can work whether fast or slow, but the more backstory you include the slower the pace. If you have a dramatic fight scene right at the start, and keep banging on about the past events of the protagonist, you slow down the action and rob it of urgency, making something that should be fast into something turgid.

Fantasy and sci-fi often have a lot of backstory and putting it into context (after all, there’s usually a whole new world to try and get across to the reader, although this should be done where it informs the story not to flood them with irrelevant information) without erecting a wall of info-dumping can be tricky. Character interaction can help. As well as fleshing out individuals, if someone’s mocked for a certain accent, you introduce [without it being clunky] the differing nations. Instead of writing ‘she was a man-hater’ you could have a woman mock a chap as a ‘fallopian-deprived ape’. If someone has long sleeves, they can dip in a drink or the sauce/gravy of their meal.

In short: show don’t tell, where possible.

That’s easier said than done, of course. [I’ll be doing more snapshot reviews in the future. At the moment, I’ve got books to read, so it’ll be a little while].

Thaddeus

Three guides to the medieval mindset

Whether reading a fantasy with an emphasis on realism, or simply seeking to understand the way people thought in the past, these three books offer a great guide to political, military, and everyday thinking.

The Prince, by Niccolo Machiavelli

Strictly speaking more Renaissance than medieval, the archetypal politician’s handbook is still relevant to both the modern and medieval worlds. Machiavelli’s work, which includes many historical examples (frequently classical but also more recent), is a masterpiece on human psychology and the realities of power. It reached an infamous status in the past due to its chapters regarding when it’s appropriate for leaders to lie to their people, and why it’s better to be feared than loved.

The Prince offers little in the way of rhetorical flimflam, and offers the unvarnished (and sometimes uncomfortable) truth about why those in power act the way they do. It’s a great book to read in itself, and excellent as a guide for how leaders think and act (in both governance and military spheres), particularly before democracy became quite so popular.

[As an aside, those into audiobooks may wish to check out the edition narrated by Ian Richardson. It’s like having Francis Urquhart give you lessons in political cunning].

By Sword and Fire, by Sean McGlynn

Getting the balance right when it comes to mercy and brutality in medieval warfare can be very difficult, as the way of thinking in those days is so different to modern morality. By Sword and Fire does a great job of putting the rationale in context, and explaining why certain actions that today would be universally condemned (Richard the Lionheart and Saladin executing prisoners in the Holy Land) made sense at the time, without imposing modern norms on the medieval world.

As you might expect, it’s a grim book, so those who are easily upset by such things shouldn’t read it. However, I found it invaluable as a resource to understand how mercy and brutality could be justified (and advantageous for the commander) in a medieval setting.

The Time Traveller’s Guide to Medieval England, by Ian Mortimer

This is an absolutely fantastic read that puts the reader in the shoes of a 14^th century fellow. It’s a sort of everyman’s history, looking at the food people ate, the way they travelled, what they wore, how justice worked, and so on. For everyday details it’s utterly invaluable and packed with interesting snippets of information (one of the best is that monks had a rule preventing them eating meat in the refectory, leading them to invent a secondary dining room called the misericord, in which they did eat meat).

Being roughly situated in the 14^th century, the book includes information about what it’s like when harvests fail, or plague strikes. It is very much about people and the world in which they lived, and is of great use in trying to see things from the perspective of an ordinary sort of fellow.

[Equivalent editions are available by the same author for Elizabethan England, and Restoration Britain, the latter of which I’m currently reading and will review].

These three books collectively offer fantastic insight into the way power politics, military morality, and the everyday world operated in the medieval age. If you’re planning on writing something set in an approximately medieval setting, or simply find the history interesting, I can highly recommend all three.

Thaddeus