Sunday's Links to Writing & Marketing Blog Posts

AVOIDING INFO DUMPS

By: Nancy J. Cohen

An info dump is when you drop a significant amount of information on the hapless reader. This can take various forms. As my editor’s recent comments indicate, even I am not immune to this fault. So what different formats might this problem take? Check these out:

Overzealous Research

You love your research, and you can’t help sharing it with readers. Here are two examples from my current WIP. The first paragraph is the original. The second one is the revised version.

Example One:

“The company built houses and rented them to the miners and their families. Single men would have shared a place together, eight to twelve of them in one dwelling. The homes were shotgun style. You could see in through the front door straight back to the rear. Since the miners worked twelve hour shifts, they weren’t all home at the same time. The rent was taken out of their paychecks.”

“The company built houses and rented them to the miners and their families. Single men often shared a place together. Since they worked twelve hour shifts, they weren’t all home at the same time.”

. . .

Read the full article HERE!

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If you missed my writing & marketing tweets and retweets yesterday, here they are again:

1. Fiction University: How POV Can Solve Your Writing Troubles http://ow.ly/yOA82
2. All Write - Fiction Advice: Does multi-genre writing really work? http://ow.ly/yOAaI
3. Southern Writers - Suite T THE END - NOW WHAT? http://ow.ly/yOAbp
4. What The Declaration Of Independence Can Teach Us About Writing | Where Writers Win http://ow.ly/yOAjh
5. You Need To Know This Information Before You Write Your Story http://ow.ly/yOAqn
6. If You've Ever Finished A Book, You Should Watch This http://ow.ly/yOAus
7. Facebook Enhances Custom Audiences: This Week in Social Media | Social Media Examiner http://ow.ly/yOAXU
8. Partnering With Brands Theme Week: Putting it All Together and Getting Started : @ProBlogger http://ow.ly/yOB2r
9. How to Be in the Top 5% of Bloggers: New Research Results - Copyblogger http://ow.ly/yOB7j
10. The Silver Lining of Bad Reviews | Jami Gold, Paranormal Author http://ow.ly/yOB9x
11. The Creative Penn Blog: Helping you write, publish and market your book | The Creative Penn http://ow.ly/yOBaA
12. The Book Designer — Practical Advice to Help Self-Publishers Build Better Books http://ow.ly/yOBbO
13. The Days When You Don’t Feel Like Writing | Ania Ahlborn | The Blog http://ow.ly/yOBfj
14. 5 back of book extras you need to include in your book http://ow.ly/yOBiF
15. Build better relationships with your readers using "Ask the Author" http://ow.ly/yOBo7
16. A Crash Course in Romance Sub-Genres - Marcy Kennedy http://ow.ly/yOBpI
17. Anne R. Allen's Blog: TOOLS OF THE (WRITER’S) TRADE: Lots of them FREE + reviews, how-to videos and cheat sheets. http://ow.ly/yOBId
18. The Kill Zone: Avoiding Info Dumps http://ow.ly/yOBLK
19. Ten Secrets for Savvy Search Engine Optimization - Marketing Tips For Authors http://ow.ly/yOBPp
20. ‘Ask yourself if this sentence, paragraph, or chapter truly furthers the narrative. If not, chuck it.’  http://ow.ly/yOBRV
21. Description—How to Make Readers Fall In & Never Escape | Kristen Lamb's Blog http://ow.ly/yOBWz
22. How Believable Is Your Character’s Storytelling? | Part 2 http://ow.ly/yOBZh

Happy writing and running, Kathy