Thursday, January 19, 2006

A Newbie's Guide to Publishing: Down in the Infodumps

It's as if JA Konrath was at my last crit group meeting.

A Newbie's Guide to Publishing: Down in the Infodumps

You know I'm talking about. Those big chunks of information that are essential to the story, but which most readers skip.

I'm currently writing a passage about a toxic substance. The reader needs to know what this substance does, how it works, and why it is so dangerous, because that sets up the suspense in several key scenes further down the road.

But laundry lists and textbook definitions aren't interesting. So these are the sneaky tricks I'm using to force the info down the reader's throat:...

Okay, so I'm forcing you to go to his site to get the tips. But Joe has lots of great stuff posted over there. Spend some time reading and then check out his novels.

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