On the surface, it doesn't seem too complex: I have a story line, I have characters that live in that story line, and that story line has key points that the characters will travel through along their merry way to the climax and denouement. All I as the writer need to do is to make sure the readers know what they need to know as they need to know it in order for them to travel along in a book as I want them to be able to do. That means exposing the plot in pieces that do the job bit by bit.
Fair enough. Seems like a straightforward requirement, right?
Not so. At least, not always. Because there are so many ways to do it poorly.
Cliches. Information dumps. Death-by-description. Insanely unrealistic conversation structures. The list goes on. And each point on it has the potential to distract, discourage, or outright bore the reader. Probably bad things to do, when I want them to like the first book enough to read the next one.
One that I'm noticing is particularly tricky to avoid though is the Dimwit pitfall: the authorial habit of having one or several characters scattered throughout the story that a writer might make purposefully slow, or improbably and dangerously out of the loop on things so that another character can have the excuse to enlighten them, and thereby enlighten the reader.
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Of course, it's not to say a character can't not know something (I know - shame on me for using a double-negative there... but I'm not ashamed enough to fix it). When you look at it, there just seems to be a significant difference between a character having to naturally learn something they don't already know, and a character being the dreaded Dimwit. The naturally-learning character knows as much as is logical for them to know at the time the story starts, and when they're put into new situations with new things their character would have no reason to know about beforehand, then sure, using their ensuing education as plot exposition is fine. But a Dimwit, on the other hand, seems to be that character that reasonably should know something already, but for some reason unrealistically needs reminding or enlightening - like if you have a character who's a spy, who reasonably should know about a widely infamous bad-guy, but the author needs exposition, so the spy's suddenly the Dimwit who needs to be told all about this infamous baddie by someone else in the story.
At least, that's how I understand it. And in thinking I understand it, I'm noticing a few of my side characters edging towards this. I think I've managed to avoid making my principal character an idiot, which is good... but yikes, it's just way too easy to just plop someone in there and claim they're out of the loop so you can have an excuse to put in moments of, "Hey, Reader! You should know this - so here ya go."
Hm. Now I feel like I need to troll through all my previous chapters on a Dimwit hunt, just in case.
Or should I save that joy for the official Edits?...
...No, I'll go nuts imagining them possibly sitting there. Just waiting. Chewing up scenes with debilitating dunce-ness.
Gah.
Dimwit hunting I go, then.
~\\//~
Word count as of today: 64,325
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