Info dump

An info dump is a passage that delivers a large block of background information — history, world-building, character backstory, technical detail — all at once, without dramatization. The story stops while the author explains. Readers experience it as a lecture inserted into the narrative rather than as narrative itself.

The problem is not the information but the delivery. Common offenders include the opening chapter that recounts a world's history before anything happens, the "as you know" conversation in which characters tell each other facts they both already know, and the mid-scene paragraph that pauses a sword fight to explain the metallurgy of the sword.

The standard alternative is incluing — a term associated with writer Jo Walton — which scatters the same information through action, dialogue, implication, and context, trusting readers to assemble the picture. The test for any piece of exposition: does the reader need this now, and can a character need it too? Information a character urgently wants is drama; information only the author wants to share is a dump.