INFORMATION

Exercise Your InkTank
INFORMATION Glut

The trouble with INFORMATION is that its transmission often raises issues of credibility, believability, and trust. INFORMATION is heavy, angular, and conspicuous. It can be very difficult to manage as INFORMATION. Here’s what can happen when INFORMATION does not rise out the story organically:

“What’s going on here Susan? It seems like there are millions of Americans here on the shores of Lake Michigan,” said Mike. He folded his blue hat in his hands.
“It’s the World’s Fair, silly, an incredibly popular and immensely influential social and cultural event,” said Susan. She straightened her old-looking dress at the waist.
“We’re lucky to be here,” he said. He touched her arm—a little forward for the times.
“We sure are. The year of 1893 is turning out to be a good one.”

Here are some concerns I’ve often heard from group members, students, teachers, mentors, and colleagues alike:

I want to deliver the kind of INFORMATION that convinces my readers of my credibility as a writer and/or convinces my readers of my character’s credibility without seeming like that’s what I’m doing; there’s nothing less convincing than a writer who’s obviously trying to convince you.

I want to get technical INFORMATION into my story without turning away readers who may not be familiar with the terminology or seeming opaque.

I want to get INFORMATION about technology, geography, politics, history, into my story that my readers will need to understand in order to follow my story, but I don’t want that INFORMATION to bog down my storytelling.

I want to get INFORMATION into my story in order to entertain and hold the interest of my readers.

I want to get INFORMATION into my story seamlessly—I don’t want it to seem like INFORMATION.

Behind these concerns are very particular larger issues—issues we should talk about as writers. Right now. But the problem with INFORMATION is that it isn’t STORYTELLING. It’s INFORMATION. Working INFORMATION into a story is always going to be a challenge for that reason.

Here goes:
I’m going to distribute little piles of INFORMATION around the room. Choose any pile you like and investigate it. Next, write a segment (of a poem, a story, an essay, a scene or something in-between) that engages some of the ideas present in your pile. If your experiment is successful, your readers should not be able to sense the presence of the INFORMATION in your segment—they’ll be engaged in your storytelling, engaged in the continuous dream that is the world of your story. Even if INFORMATION isn’t a problem for you, this exercise will give you a chance to come into your writing at a different angle.