As You Know, Bob: Conveying Information in Science Fiction Stories

One of the fun things about venturing into a completely new field is learning all of the jargon. Physics, of course, has lots of it, but so does science fiction writing. And one of the first phrases that a neophyte writer discovers is "As You Know, Bob."  What's that all about?

Conveying information in a science article is easy: just say it.  But when it comes to a science fiction story, it's not so simple.  Consider this beginning for a story:

          Joe Waltham burst into the ship’s control room.  Klaxons wailed, and the neutrino gauges flickered wildly.  “Bill,” he shouted, “the solar neutrino detectors have gone crazy.”

          The sun produces neutrinos in the course of its fusion reactions.  Two protons bind to form deuterium, producing a positron and an electron neutrino.  The electron neutrino can escape from the sun’s core.

          Bill rushed over to check the detector feeds.  “I don’t see anything wrong at this end.”

See anything odd?  The author wants to explain why the sun produces neutrinos, but he places a large indigestible lump of explanation right in the middle of the story.  This would be perfectly acceptable in a science article – in fact, it's the primary content of nonfiction.  But in a work of fiction, it completely interrupts the plot and pulls the reader out of the story. In the argot of the science fiction community, this is known as an “infodump.” Having been advised on the dangers of the infodump, our intrepid author cleans up his story:

Joe Waltham burst into the ship’s control room.  Klaxons wailed, and the neutrino gauges flickered wildly.  “Bill,” he shouted, “the solar neutrino detectors have gone crazy.”

             Bill rushed over to check the detector feeds.  “I don’t see anything wrong at this end.”  He turned to Joe.  “As you know Joe, the sun produces neutrinos in the course of its fusion reactions.”

              “Yes,” said Joe, “I know that.”

             “And you also know that two protons bind to form deuterium, producing a positron and an electron neutrino.”

             Joe nodded.  “Yes, I know that too.  But why are you telling me all of these things that I already know?”

This seems barely better than the infodump, and in fact it’s just as bad.  The practice of having characters explain to each other things that they already know is called an “As you know, Bob,” and it clearly renders the story less credible.

So how is an author supposed to introduce information into the story?  Exposition in science fiction is much trickier than in nonfiction.  The author needs to introduce new information without interrupting the flow of the story.  This is usually done in bits and pieces, with an occasional expository chunk.  The trick is to get the readers sufficiently interested that they are craving more information and practically begging for an infodump before you give it to them.

And it's especially important in science fiction to establish the setting and characters at the very beginning of the story, because the choices are so large:  are we on Earth, or the moon, or some other planet?  Is it the present day, the near future, or the far future?  Is our protagonist human, or a slimy multi-tentacled creature?  And all of this has to be done without interrupting the flow of the story.

Let’s take a look at the beginning of this story that I posted earlier:

EXTRA INNINGS

            Jimmy Dyson pushed his bicycle through the sun-baked field behind Benny Krauss’s house, spraying clouds of dandelion seeds into the air and jostling the precious cargo in the basket mounted on the handlebars.  Withered thistles caught on the scratchy wool socks his mom always made him wear, even in the St. Louis summer.

            “Benny, it came yesterday!” Jimmy shouted, lifting a brick-red box from the basket and waving it in the air.  “It has Bob Gibson on the cover!”

           

What do we learn at the very beginning of the story?  Given the title, the story is likely to concern baseball in some way, and this is reinforced by the reference to Bob Gibson.  The setting is St. Louis, in the summer, although this information is introduced in passing, without drawing particular attention to it.  And what about the characters?  We know they are youngish boys – old enough to be riding bicycles to each other’s houses, but young enough that Jimmy is still forced to wear socks that his mother chooses.  Also, the names are juvenile:  Jimmy and Benny.  Later, we learn that this is the summer before they go off to high school.

Now look at this section, later in the story:

             Jim Dyson dragged himself up the hospital steps, wheezing and stopping every three steps to catch his breath.  Each time he put weight on his left leg, his knee burned like someone had driven a hot knife under the knee-cap.  At least the knee pain took his mind off of his constant backache.  What was the point of living to 94 if you felt like death warmed over?  But damned if he was going to discarnate until Laura did.

Jimm is now Jim – obviously an adult, and in fact 94 years old and in poor health.  But what’s going on in the last sentence?  Jim isn’t planning to “discarnate?”  What’s that all about?

In science fiction, it's not necessary to explain everything immediately, and it’s often better not to.  The reference to “discarnating” piques your curiosity (I hope!) and makes you want to read further to find out what it’s all about.  There is an implicit contract between the reader and author of a science fiction story.  The author is allowed to introduce new ideas or words without immediate explanation, with the understanding that all will be made clear by the end.  The author must strike a balance between giving too much information up front (boring) and too little (incomprehensible).

So while fiction and nonfiction are both types of "writing", they involve some very different strategies to keep the reader interested.  A lot of people think it's easier to write fiction than nonfiction.  It certainly is.  But it's a lot harder to write good fiction than good nonfiction.