at (a) the punchline of a private joke no reader will get or (b)
the display of some bit of learned trivia relevant only to the
author. This stunt may be intensely ingenious, and very
gratifying to the author, but it serves no visible fictional
purpose. (Attr. Tim Powers)
Plot Coupons. The basic building blocks of the quest-type fantasy
plot. The hero collects sufficient plot coupons (magic sword,
magic ring, magic cat) to send off to the author for the ending.
The author decrees that the hero will pursue his quest until
sufficient pages are filled to complete a trilogy. (Attr. Dave
Langford)
Bogus Alternatives. A list of plot-paths that a character could
have taken, but didn't. In this nervous mannerism, the author
stops the action dead to work out complicated plot problems at the
reader's expense. "If I'd gone along with the cops they would
have found the gun in my purse. And anyway, I didn't want to
spend the night in jail. I suppose I could have just run away
instead of stealing their squad car, but then...." Best dispensed
with entirely.
PART FIVE: BACKGROUND
Info-dump. Large chunk of indigestible expository matter intended
to explain the background situation. Info-dumps can be covert, as
in fake newspaper or "Encyclopedia Galactica" articles, or overt,
in which all action stops as the author assumes center stage and
lectures. Info-dumps are also known as "expository lumps." The
use of brief, deft, inoffensive info-dumps is known as
"kuttnering," after Henry Kuttner. When information is worked
unobtrusively into the story's basic structure, this is known as
"heinleining."
Stapledon. Name assigned to the auctorial voice which takes
center stage to deliver a massive and magisterial info-dump.
Actually a common noun, as in "I like the way your stapledon
describes the process of downloading brains into computer memory,
but when you try to heinlein it later, I can't tell what the hell
is happening."
Frontloading. Piling too much exposition into the beginning of
the story, so that it becomes so dense and dry that it is almost
impossible to read. (Attr. Connie Willis)
Nowhere Nowhen Story. Putting too little exposition into the
story's beginning, so that the story, while physically readable,
seems to take place in a vacuum and fails to engage any readerly
interest. (Attr. L. Sprague de Camp)
