Member-only story
AVOID INFO DUMPS
How ‘Expository’ Dialogue Can Hurt You With Editors
Ways to overcome the ‘As You Know, Bob’ trope and other types of overexplaining in your writing
Editors make all kinds of jokes about writers behind their backs. One involves “expository” or “expositional” dialogue in fiction. Use too much of it and you could become known as a writer fond of the “As You Know, Bob” or AYKB trope.
Expository dialogue occurs when characters say things they know but readers don’t. Instead of dramatizing facts vital to a plot, writers cram them into characters’ mouths, which can have unintentionally comical results.
The info dump often follows a phrase such as, “As you know, Bob,” which led to the trope. Terry Pratchett, the late English novelist, referred to the fantasy-fiction variant as the “As you know, your father, the king …” speech.
The problem doesn’t lie with exposition itself. Explanatory or descriptive text has a place in fiction, including in dialogue. The problem is that expository dialogue — if handled badly — tends to sound stilted, awkward, or unnatural, because it doesn’t reflect how people really speak.
