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Q&A At what point does a POV character noting their surroundings go from showing/telling to an infodump?

One of the questions to be asked first is why is the character there? Someone just arriving at a new place for a business chat with the occupant is not going to observe the place the same way an in...

posted 6y ago by Keith Morrison‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

Answer
#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T07:41:51Z (about 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/37873
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by user avatar Keith Morrison‭ · 2019-12-08T07:41:51Z (about 5 years ago)
One of the questions to be asked first is why is the character there? Someone just arriving at a new place for a business chat with the occupant is not going to observe the place the same way an investigator is looking at a potential crime scene or a someone checking out their friend's new digs is going to.

If the character is there primarily to talk to the occupant about something where the location isn't relevant, you can slip details into the conversation about what the POV happens to notice as the conversation goes on. If someone is there and the occupant is showing them around, then it would be the occupant pointing out the stuff, and the POV perhaps noticing other things as the mini-travalogue goes on.

If the POV is there as an investigator, then there's a logical reason why they'd methodically examine the room. If someone was writing my thought processes during a fire investigation, they'd see a very systematic approach describing what was being seen.

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2018-07-25T17:19:24Z (over 6 years ago)
Original score: 1