Dumping The Info

Plot devices of knowledge

Some plot devices exist for the sake of dumping info. You have to clue the readers in somehow, after all.

Like “As You Know, Bob” dialog, in which characters tell each other things that they already know, often mentioning that the other character does know in the process.

It’s old.

It’s really old.

Homer used it in the Iliad when Achilles talks to Thetis.

Aristophanes broke the fourth wall to have the characters point out that they are doing it for the benefit of the audience.

And to this day, characters lecture each other about things they know.

Partly because many ways to evade it are also plot devices. Introducing a character who has no reason either to be there, or to be ignorant of what happened, for instance. And then either clumsily working that character into the story or dropping him without any good reason.

Aristophanes and other playwrights have the excuse that they have no other means of communication but putting things in the actors’ mouths. Not that, with the decline of omniscient narrators and advance of show-don’t-tell, writers are always in a better position.

There are various things one can do to disguise it.

Create a plausible reason for someone to be ignorant, such as a new lady-in-waiting at court.

Create a plausible motive for someone to demand that another character tell him something he already knows, such as a subordinate proving he knows all the facts.

Have characters talk in a manner that presupposes the knowledge and lets it seep out through the cracks, such as a guard refusing to let someone see the king and saying, “I suppose you found the princess! A mere twenty years after she was lost! I suppose no one else should have looked, just waited for you!” (This often pushes the boundaries of the plot device, but then, plot devices get a lot of slack if they do, in fact, move the story onward.)

All of those have require considerations of viewpoint and characterization, which also have to be carried through.¹ While you can narrow down viewpoint characters as the story goes on, flipping through a dozen in the first chapter and then settling on one does jar the reader.²

It can be simpler to slip into epistolary and stick in an excerpt from the Encyclopedia Galactica, or the annals of an abbey. Epistolary’s flexibility is a great aid here. (If the viewpoint is loose enough that the reader doesn’t wonder why the viewpoint character put those in.)

Or you put the excerpt in the story. The amazing coincidences of gossip, lessons for children, or news stories are plot devices themselves.

In extreme cases, of course, the character is thrown into a book he’s read, or a game he’s played. Historical situations are also possible, but of course history can be inaccurate, and is certainly limited. A character can easily find himself pondering the exact questions of how much got left out.

At that, the work of fiction can be inaccurate. Ozma can mildly explain that L. Frank Baum was, of course, writing children’s books. Other works can range from closer to further. (Sometimes giving the strong impression that the writer didn’t bother to stick to the original work, because the divergence does not work graciously in the story. At the very least, if the character read the work, the differences should be noticed.)

Or, of course, the reader (or player of the game) can sit down and take notes, and use them as absolutely accurate guides to survival.

This often wears its plot device status on its sleeve. It skips over all the considerations of how this knowledge got into the game or book as well as how the character was drawn into the world of the story.

Which may have its virtues in moving the story along.

On the other hand -- if you do nothing with the game elements except info-dump with them, they are blatantly a plot device.

Some stories even manage to forget the introduction once it’s served its purpose. They often manage to make their worlds more vivid and concrete that those who continually remember its having been a game or novel. But they still have it hanging around, awkwardly, in the introduction.

Such are the ways of plot devices.

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