Getting your Readers over the Infodump Hump!

“A spoon full of sugar helps the medicine go down- in the most delightful way.”- Mary Poppins

In some of the writing forums I frequent, a very common situation comes up. A new (usually young) writer will come on, and ask if people will look at the first couple chapters of their new science fiction or fantasy novel and tell them if those chapters are any good.

Nine times out of ten (and I’m being generous with that statistic), the answer is that the chapters in question are complete crap. One of...