Is it a good idea to do this? I just started writing and I dislike dialogue heavy texts so I have grown to write moderately descriptive stories instead; people have, however, told me that I should not include so much irrelevant information as they have trouble reading it. I tried writing a dialogue heavy text; but with less descriptions, it comes off as amateurish and confusing to the same people. What is your advice on maintaining a proper a balance if necessary? I am willing to drop samples from both texts if asked.
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1The alternative to info-dumping isn't using dialogue. It's limiting the amount of (irrelevant) information you pour onto the page. One way to mitigate info-dumping is giving the reader the information they need when they need it, instead of trying to dump all of it on them up front.– user54131Sep 21, 2022 at 5:57
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I get what you are saying but say, if I come back to the place where the first chapter took place in chapter 12 and start describing what I could have described in chapter 1 but is relevant now, would that not be more weird?– nattoSep 21, 2022 at 18:37
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It depends a little on what it is. Unless you publish a serial, you can always update earlier chapters to fix plot holes if necessary. Another consideration is that most readers won't remember irrelevant information for 11 chapters until it finally becomes relevant in chapter 12. So you'd have to refresh their memory anyway. And if you write from a character's perspective, you also have the excuse that a character may not notice everything the first time around.– user54131Sep 21, 2022 at 19:12
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Alright, that makes sense. Thank you.– nattoSep 21, 2022 at 19:34
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There is a frame challenge here that asks why your dialog becomes 'confusing', and why 'moderately descriptive' prose wanders off-topic... I suggest the common denominator might be about story-focus: the narrator's ability to stay in the here-and-now (anchor the reader's attention), and also how to dynamically reveal ideas over the course of the story. Threatening to 'info dump' everything doesn't sound like it addresses your writing/focus problems, just that you're impatient for readers to know the plot stuff that you already know.– wetcircuitSep 26, 2022 at 13:29
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