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I am going to engage in a bout of profane utterances against one of the core teachings of the writer's forum. What are these blasphemies of which I speak? What diabolical, damning words could possibly be spouted that will forever mar my record of sound advice? Why, that's a simple answer, and those dark and forbidding words are thus:

Info dumping is not always bad.

Now that I have your attention, I shall explain.

There are, unfortunately, times where info dumping is unavoidable. This does not, however, translate into license to info dump willy nilly without care for your readers attention span. To the contrary, in fact. Info dumping should be avoided whenever possible, and one should go to great lengths to avoid doing so, simply because it has a tendency of killing the momentum of the story.

What is info dumping? For purposes of this thread, info dumping is the inclusion of any large amount of information all at once that has a potentially suspect contribution/value to the story.

How does one determine if info dumping is acceptable if it's to be avoided at almost any cost?


Context
To begin the process of figuring this out, start by asking yourself two simple questions:

1) Will the information being dropped be important later in the story?

2) Does it answer questions that have been raised during the course of the story?

The important thing to keep in mind is that these questions depend on the context of the info dump in question, whether it addresses something in the past of the story or something in the future. This does not mean, though, that only one of the questions is important. Both are important, and both are relevant.

Let's take Dan Brown's Angels & Demons for an example (and I'm going to violate my above definition slightly for the sake of simplicity): Very early in the story, Robert Langdon is informed that a square yard of cloth is enough to slow free fall by 20%. Why is he told this? Because he's wondering why a woman in a vertical wind tunnel is wearing a small parachute. Does this information become important later in the story? Yes. This small info dump, then, meets both questions with a yes, and is therefore safely absolved of needing to be avoided, even though the information has no pertinence whatsoever to 99.9% of the rest of the story.

But what if the info dump only meets one question with a yes? Does that make it unnecessary? Not always. It is possible to do an info dump that addresses only one of the questions, but for it to work effectively, you have to be aware of the context.

If Robert Langdon had been told early in the story, completely out of the blue, that a square yard of cloth will slow free fall by 20% simply because that information will be important later in the story, an info dump faux pas will have been committed. Why? Because the information is irrelevant except for that one particular spot in the story. Conversely, if the information was only relevant to answering the immediate question of why the woman was wearing the parachute, and the information was then entirely unused over the remainder of the story, it would still be safe. Why? Because it addresses a question raised in the story.


Importance
Of course, the question of why the woman was wearing the parachute could as easily have gone unanswered and not affected the story at all, and this is another aspect to consider when considering an info dump. In fact, it's the most important.

Is the info dump important to the story? Does it add to the story?

This is trickier to answer, because it depends a lot on subjective opinion. To continue with our parachute example, the info dump fails with a resounding no. Why? Because Robert Langdon doesn't need that information to know that even a crappy makeshift parachute will slow his descent and possibly save his life. The information was included, not because it was important to the story or because it added depth of any sort, but because it fascinated the writer.

It's this that will be the biggest determining factor on whether or not an info dump is good or bad. If it's not important to the story and if it doesn't add any depth, it's better to leave the information out, even if it meets the context criteria.


EXAMPLES
Bad, Evil, Naughty!
As much as I admire Stephen King and his writing and story telling abilities, he has written one of the most heinous info dumps I have ever had the misfortune of encountering. Specifically, it's to be found in Wolves of the Calla, which is the fifth book in his Dark Tower epic, and it was almost enough to make me lose the desire to finish reading the series (which is saying a lot).

Now, the problem with this particular info dump is that it's about twenty pages (maybe more, maybe less, but it was a hell of a lot) of back story about a character who, up until that book, had only appeared in Salem's Lot. That character? Pere Callahan. Pere Callahan is not even that important to the over all story. The only reason he even comes into the story is because he happens to be in possession of Black 13, which is the most powerful, and most dangerous, of the legendary seeing crystals that tie the worlds of the Dark Tower together.

But does this justify giving us twenty pages of back story on him and how he came to be in the Calla after fleeing Salem's Lot? Sadly, no. While there are interesting moments in his back story, they aren't sufficiently fascinating or important to have them in the story. None of it answers any of the questions that have been raised over the course of the story other than the most immediate (where Black 13 went, how it came to be where it is, and (somewhat) why it's important (which is answered more effectively by Roland than anyone else in the story)), and none of it becomes important later except for the information about the vampires (and the low men, if you're interested in all the tie ins King throws in with his other works).

Good, Wholesome, Nutritious
Final Fantasy 7, although not a book, is a story, and there are info dumps galore to be found throughout. I'm only going to focus on one in particular, that being the twenty, thirty minutes of info dump in Kalm right after leaving Midgard. Why this particular one? Because it's the largest in the entire game, and the most pivotal.

After several hours of gameplay in Midgard for setting up the story that carries the rest of the game, we have tons of questions (in no particular order of importance): Sephiroth? The Ancients? Jenova? Shinra? Mako? Soldier? Cloud's & Tifa's past? Aeris? Ananaki/Red XIII?

We need an info dump, and badly, to even begin answering many of these questions. There is simply no other way to include the information needed for doing so, and so Square gives us an info dump.

Does it meet the requirements of context? Handily. It answers, to some extent, many of the questions that have been raised in the first several hours of game play, as well as providing information that later becomes important to the story.

Does it have meaning to the story as a whole and does it add depth? Again, it easily meets both of these, because it lays further foundations to build the story, as well as adding further depth to both the world and the characters.


Conclusion
Info dumps are not evil incarnate, but they must be handled with care and caution, lest they become poorly done, ruining your story and/or losing your reader's interest, at worst, or merely seeming incongruent, at best.

Which was my point.

The thing with that, though, and the point I was making by using it as an example, is that the information isn't needed. Anyone who's seen even a handful of action movies or tv will understand that a parachute, no matter how ill-conceived, will slow your fall, and so him using the helicopter's window cover will make sense without needing to explain why it works. Hell, Mythbusters even did a show about the whole inflatable-raft-as-parachute bit that was in a James Bond movie, and the raft, once it was inflated, did slow the descent (even if it was unlikely you'd be able to stay in it once it flipped over).