exposition: the art of it

[TheRedChamber]

At minimum, the very worst kind of exposition is starting a story with, "Jeff was a talented lawyer."

It's okay only if you then combine it with something highly contrasting, to get the readers interest.

Jeff was a talented lawyer, but he really needed to stop sneaking his gun into court.
Jeff was a talented lawyer, but key to his success was primarly his ability to make any and all of the ladies on the jury wet, ten seconds into his opening speach.
Jeff was a talented lawyer, mostly due to alien parasite lodge deep in his brain.

And so on.

 

[AchtungNight]

As others have said, exposition should be kept to necessary and brief stuff at best, maybe add a few laughs and trivia here and there. Pacing is important too. You can’t please everyone, so concentrate on yourself and the majority of other important readers. Hopefully the rest will forgive you.

I always try to start by introducing a necessary character doing something important to the plot that engages the reader. A few examples include-

Inside Out- our hero arrives in London, meets and flirts with Keira Knightley. The scene establishes they’ll fuck later once they team up to fight a crime boss. Hopefully the reader will enjoy the bonding between these two characters and their fight scene against the bad guy before the sex scene. And the sex scene too. Saving Sandra uses a similar formula, only different female lead and the sex isn’t as certain until the end. It does still happen, though, this is erotica.

Ruleskirter starts with our hottie heroine in a fight against a man she doesn’t want to bang. The hero helps her defeat the bad guy. They spend the next few chapters bonding before finally getting it on. The conclusion chapter has the most exposition- hopefully the readers care about the characters by that point.

Rendezvous- exposition comes first, but it’s setting up the conflicts between the characters. Later they will get over their issues and become friends with benefits. Of course the readers are constantly reminded these ladies are hot, attracted to each other, and if they could just put their problems aside… The sex is worth waiting for or skipping to as you prefer.

In other words, always start with a conflict. Engage your readers and give them something in which to invest their interest and time.

 

[TheLobster]

If I open a story and all I see above the fold is shotgun dialogue between characters I know nothing about, I'm clicking Back faster than you can say "exposition."

But the same thing applies to a wall of text of boring descriptions, especially if it isn't neatly divided into paragraphs and skillfully edited for pace.

It is a spectrum, like @SimonDoom said, between exposition and action. Personally I really like to intertwine one with the other, letting the setting slowly take shape as the character is doing some mundane yet plot-related action. Since this is erotica we're talking about, I'm actually quite fine "sacrificing" a minor sex scene for this purpose. In two of my stories, there's quite a lot of exposition done while the MC is masturbating, and I even lean on the fourth wall by having the narrator almost respond to what they're saying. I can't be certain that it works, of course, but at least none of the comments I recall complained about it taking too long before getting to the action.

I'm curious about the genre differences, though. My Geek Pride entry is my first foray into SF here, and I do have a more traditional exposition part at the beginning there. My hunch is that readers in that category are more tolerant for authors taking their time to establish the futuristic or fantastical worlds before jumping into action. The many stories in SF&F that I've seen doing that tend to perform fine.

 

[KeithD]

movies are a different medium. images convey lot more than words. you put one of the most popular actors in your film, and the audience knows right away who should they care about.

You've changed the goal posts. You specified novels.

 

[samhasstories]

now granted, there's good exposition and bad exposition.

I think this is the key. And likewise there's good action and there's bad action. The in medias res opening you describe, where the opening scene doesn't give the reader enough compelling details to grab their interest, is bad action. That isn't an example of why you should start things off with an infodump: you just need to start strong, whether you're starting with a shoot-out or sex or with a deep dive into geology.

"Show don't tell" is a maxim at this point, but it isn't absolute. You can tell; just tell it well. A good telling, when used in the right circumstances, can beat a poor showing, and vice versa (though I'd say a poor showing beats a poor telling).

 

[AwkwardlySet]

The exposition and possibly the dialogue are two aspects of writing where authors in general fail the most, in my opinion. I agree with what Simon said on the subject. The exposition needs to be done gradually and never at the start of the story - a few sentences max in that case. You need to make the reader invested before they will care enough to bother with reading about the worldbuilding, the plot setting, character development, etc. The times when authors could get away with breaking those rules are long past, in my opinion. There are simply too many books, too many stories out there to bother with reading something that fails to catch your attention from the start.

 

[intim8]

but there's also the epoch. back then, when you picked a book, you kept at it, even if the first few pages were kinda boring. what else where you going to do? nowadays, you start reading a story online, if it does not "hook" you in the first paragraph, you move on

Somewhat unfortunately, that is the expectation now. I was raised on the old books, the ones that built up the people places and things, then introduced a plot to put them in. There's a certain appeal to that, but now, if you want to write that way, you have to be really, really good at it.

But the new way is a lot more dynamic, and I think a bigger opportunity for creativity.

But either way, the key is to immediatly give the reader something to care about and a question they want answered.

The question doesn't have to be the central question of the plot, it can be something a lot smaller, so long as readers care enough to want the answer. That'll get them turning pages, and then the writer's job is to introduce the real story in such a way that the reader is hooked on that by the time their initial question is answered.

One technique I use is to start with something happening, maybe not something that directly addresses the main conflict, but something that has some kind of tension to it, whether internal for the character (I do a lot of that) or a tension with something external. But it is also something that demonstrates their character by action rather than narration. Probably not their physical description, but something of who they are.

Another is to show some minor event that demonstrates the social, political, or technological context the story will take place in. A mini story within the story that has minor tensions and is resolved quickly. Often involving someone that will become the MC, but with only a subtle focus on them.

A read a fair amount of contemporary "thrillers", arguably the most sales oriented, lowest common denominator, formulaic writing out there, (I read those when I want a little escapism and don't want to think too hard) and there is a surprising amount of variety in how they open. Typical "tropes" include:

--The MC, usually a homicide detective, is right in the middle of catching the bad guy in some minor-ish case. Shows their character, and often sets up a personal tension that colors the remainder of the book. They bent the rules and that was their second to last chance, or they missed their wedding anniversary or their child's Big Event... again, and their spouse has had enough.

--The bad guy himself is plotting his next move, from his POV. It's a terrifying plan, and very well thought out. The MC has their work cut out for them.

--The MC is experiencing a change in their persona life or work life that isn't pleasant, but they are determined to make the best of it. A Cop/FBI Agent/Spy gets demoted and sent off to the worst posting in the most boring place imaginable is a common one. Or the MC's spouse is leaving them. Or the troubled family member they haven't heard from in years suddenly reappers and needs something, or presents some shady opportunity.

--A doomed POV character is becoming the victim of some terrible crime. They're a normal, every day person, usually a somewhat well fleshed out character with their background well described so their death or assault or whatever matters. This will be the first in a string of cases the MC has to solve, and there are few clues to go on, until a pattern starts to emerge when it happens again and again.

You hear 'inciting incident' a lot, but my sense is that most people conceive it too narrowly, probably because of these thriller tropes (they are typically among the biggest sellers out there). The term implies more drama than is always necessry.

 

[intim8]

If you HAVE TO do significant exposition, try to do it in the form of a dialogue, or multiple dialogues, where one character is telling the other something he doesn't know.

Or at least do it after the reader is hooked.

A great big infodump at the beginning of a story is almost always back click and out,

The exception is science fiction. Those readers still tolerate it, or even expect it. But the difference is, if you build a compelling new world, the possibilities of it serve to build interest and anticipation in the reader.

If you HAVE TO do significant exposition, try to do it in the form of a dialogue, or multiple dialogues, where one character is telling the other something he doesn't know.

Yes. It's part of the general 'rule' of making each scene, each sentence, do multiple things at once. But sticking just to dialog brings up a huge temptation for As You Know, Bob. It can be smuggled in in other ways. A single character's thoughts, a secondary character doing something that reveals some general back story. One technique is to in some way personify the environment itself, or some inanimate object, and tell it's story almost as if it was a character. "The volcano had slumbered for millenia, but now it's internal pressures had built to the breaking point..."

Infodumps, when necessary, don't have to be a complete, separate and whole narrative. They can be dribbled out, a little here, a little there, as the story moves along, so no one break in the action is long enough to take the reader out of the story.

"Show don't tell" is a maxim at this point, but it isn't absolute. You can tell; just tell it well. A good telling, when used in the right circumstances, can beat a poor showing, and vice versa (though I'd say a poor showing beats a poor telling).

Very much this.

 

[VerbalAbuse]

start with something happening

the technique you mention is often used. but it's just that, a technique, a trick, an artifice. it's a little number you put up before the real show.

once you get into the main matter, the reader has already forgotten about it.

so as a reader, you ask yourself, what was that about?

it's something you can do, but it's not exactly an elegant solution. nor the proper thing to do.

 

[VerbalAbuse]

"The volcano had slumbered for millenia, but now it's internal pressures had built to the breaking point..."

this type of revelation is also problematic. the omniscient narrator (god, actually) is also opinionated and partial. he cares about this particular fact (that the volcano did this and that.)

you, the reader, benefit from his godly intervention. he calls your attention to this fact. you and him -- the reader and god himself -- are intim8 with stuff that the characters have no clue about. god comes to you, an ordinary citizen, a reader of books, and personally lets you know that the volcano is about to blow up. I don't quite believe that god feels for you that intensely.

 

[intim8]

a technique, a trick, an artifice. it's a little number you put up before the real show.

once you get into the main matter, the reader has already forgotten about it.

Everything in writing is a technique and an artifice. It's how you execute it that matters.

Yes, the reader might have forgotten it, but if there is some piece of it, a characterization, a tension, even a setting, that carries forward, they may have forgotten the event, but they have the vibe for the rest of the story. That's what makes it significant to the story.

Same with the volcano example. It's contrived and just thrown out there as an illustration of the point. Narrators almost always have information characters don't have, and even more so for information some characters don't have. Yes, you have to be careful with it, but it is a legit thing.

 

[VallesMarineris]

I read books starting with shooting scenes and I don't know why I should care about the MC. I can't put a face on him, an age, a motivation -- anything.

Writers need to keep in mind that visual narratives (movies, TV series, even stage plays) are, in Marshall McLuhan's terminology, "hot" media: they instantly and continually dump a ton of information on the viewer, who can just sit back and absorb as much or as little as desired. Exposition and explanation are seldom needed, and typically avoided. This is why every Bond villain's world-destroying bomb has a countdown timer on it.

Literature, in contrast, is a "cool" medium, delivering only a trickle of information and requiring active participation by the reader. Some exposition is necessary, but the author needs to be careful not to insert a bolus so big it interferes with the reader's participation and breaks the narrative spell.

Of course, in some nerdy genres (sci-fi, spy thrillers, police procedurals, etc.) exposition is part of the fun. But even so, the author needs to careful. I remember long ago reading a Tom Clancy novel in which his hero, Jack Ryan, gets to ride on Air Force One. That should have been interesting, but Clancy went on page after page with details not relevant to the action-oriented story. I skipped over that part. But that was fine, because in the movie Air Force One I only had to follow Harrison Ford running up the aisle to get a picture of the inside of the aircraft as a side benefit to the action.

 

[yowser]

There is nothing wrong with exposition if the writer makes it interesting, and relevant.

Many entry-level writers (and some experienced ones as well) are unable to resist the temptation to Explain Everything. Readers don't need it, only enough to carry the day, get you to the next part. It's fine to provoke questions for the reader, as long as there are signs that those will get answered.

As a reader, I want to know that my author is confident on the feet, won't insult my intelligence or lead me astray. I want the author to be like my favorite uncle, who'll show me how to throw a frisbee without a long dissertation on the physics of spinning objects.

'Here, like this, a flip of the wrist, you'll get the hang of it.'

Then on to the game. Let's have some running, some throwing and catching acrobatics, even some pratfalls, but mostly daring play between interesting teams. They don't call it 'Ultimate Frisbee' for nothing.

 

[StillStunned]

The exception is science fiction. Those readers still tolerate it, or even expect it. But the difference is, if you build a compelling new world, the possibilities of it serve to build interest and anticipation in the reader.

I find that in certain types of fantasy you can begin with exposition. Sword & Sorcery (yes, my little hobby horse) typically begins with a long and detailed description of the setting, to set the mood. RE Howard's "The Tower of the Elephant" opens with the most vivid description of the shady city where Conan is introduced that you can imagine. Fritz Leiber introduced Fafhrd after a long tract about barbarians and snow.

Done skilfully (like REH and Leiber) it gives the reader a wide-angled view of the setting before narrowing the focus onto the protagonist. So the opposite of "first action, then world". It's probably necessary in speculative fiction because otherwise the reader is left wondering what the world is like.

Still, there's a balance, and S&S in particular tends to be quite sparse with descriptive sections after introducing a scene. That's probably one reason why I enjoy it so much. It's like the author paints a background, drops the characters in and gets on with the action.

 

[SimonDoom]

It all depends on the story. For instance, the

At minimum, the very worst kind of exposition is starting a story with, "Jeff was a talented lawyer."

That's a good example of telling not showing.

A better way to do it would be to start a story in the middle of a trial, where Jeff is talking to the jury. The narrator SHOWS that Jeff is a talented lawyer by depicting his words and actions, and it shows that a juror responds to him in a strong way, further illustrating his effectiveness. That's far better than giving a synopsis of his legal education and career.

 

[THBGato]

the question is: how do you do exposition? what is the good way to do it?

I don't know if there's a good way or a bad way to do exposition, BUT I will say that @onehitwanda does exposition very well, especially in On the Simplicity of Words and Sandcastles (both ranked 4.92, if you needed further proof that she does indeed do this very well).

To pick them apart a little, both actually start in media res yet these are flashbacks, which are then followed by further flashbacks, all very short scenes, that give us a very rich deep dive into the MCs' backstories. Thus the exposition is dealt with swiftly yet emotively and in linear fashion, so it's easy to follow. By the time we arrive at the characters' present within the story we feel like we already know a lot about them.

Further exposition does of course happen, but does so in dialogue, largely following Heyall's rule above:

The best way, generally speaking, is to reveal things when they need to be revealed.

That's what I try to do. My first story featured two former friends who hadn't seen each other for 22 years. Thus, it was perfectly natural that they should catch each other up to an extent in their conversation. Hence, all the necessary exposition could largely go in their dialogue.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Example: Fellowship of the Ring. It does not start out with a long background about the ring. It starts with Bilbo's birthday party, and what will be his farewell from the Shire.

FotR isn't really a standard opening though, because most readers starting on that book will already have read a novel's worth of exposition and world-building via The Hobbit. In the opening of that book, we get expo like this:

The mother of our particular hobbit... what is a hobbit? I suppose hobbits need some description nowadays, since they have become rare and shy of the Big People, as they call us. They are (or were) a little people, about half our height, and smaller than the bearded Dwarves. Hobbits have no beards. There is little or no magic about them, except the ordinary everyday sort which helps them to disappear quietly and quickly when large stupid folk like you and me come blundering along, making a noise like elephants which they can hear a mile off. They are inclined to be fat in the stomach; they dress in bright colours (chiefly green and yellow); wear no shoes, because their feet grow natural leathery soles and thick warm brown hair like the stuff on their heads (which is curly); have long clever brown fingers, good-natured faces, and laugh deep fruity laughs (especially after dinner, which they have twice a day when they can get it). Now you know enough to go on with.

That's a paragraph of info-dump there, though he makes it engaging, and he also uses it to slip in some non-hobbit exposition. We learn that dwarves have beards, and are somewhere taller than "half our height" (but probably not human-sized). We learn that there is magic in this world, but that much of it is a subtle kind. Bilbo also gives us some info-dump about Gandalf:

"Gandalf, Gandalf! Good gracious me! Not the wandering wizard that gave Old Took a pair of magic diamond studs that fastened themselves and never came undone till ordered? Not the fellow who used to tell such wonderful tales at parties, about dragons and goblins and giants and the rescue of princesses and the unexpected luck of widows' sons? Not the man that used to make such particularly excellent fireworks! I remember those! Old Took used to have them on Midsummer's Eve. Splendid! They used to go up like great lilies and snapdragons and laburnums of fire and hang in the twilight all evening!" You will notice already that Mr. Baggins was not quite so prosy as he liked to believe, also that he was very fond of flowers. "Dear me!" he went on. "Not the Gandalf who was responsible for so many quiet lads and lasses going off into the Blue for mad adventures. Anything from climbing trees to visiting Elves - or sailing in ships, sailing to other shores! Bless me, life used to be quite inter - I mean, you used to upset things badly in these parts once upon a time. I beg your pardon, but I had no idea you were still in business." "Where else should I be?" said the wizard.

Any Tolkien fan could fill a page with all the things Bilbo doesn't know about Gandalf, but it's a good start. Again, it's a multi-purpose paragraph; while filling us in on Gandalf it also develops Bilbo's character and hints at future developments.

Further on in the intro chapter, we get a lot of exposition on the backstory to Bilbo's upcoming quest, with Smaug's attack on the Lonely Mountain.

FotR can start out with relatively light exposition, because it's beginning in familiar territory with characters and a world that have already been established; there are many things like Sauron and the Ring that still need to be expo'd but there's enough to get things moving before those have to be explained.

Or at least do it after the reader is hooked.

The exception is science fiction. Those readers still tolerate it, or even expect it. But the difference is, if you build a compelling new world, the possibilities of it serve to build interest and anticipation in the reader.

With SF and F it depends on the individual story. Some kinds of settings have been used so heavily over the years that they can be taken as assumed knowledge - if I'm writing D&D-esque swords-and-sorcery I can introduce an orcish barbarian and an elvish wizard without ever needing to explain what those things mean, and Harry Potter leans heavily on the genre of boarding-school stories as well as assorted fantasy and fairytale.

SF is maybe a bit more fragmented, but things like "cyberpunk dystopia" and "power armour" are well established, and a lot of it is in franchises like Star Wars or 40K where the expo has already been done by somebody else.

Outside of those areas, SF/F usually does require a lot of exposition but it still needs to be managed well to avoid info overload or starvation.

 

[KeithD]

When you guys start making points on writing prose with examples from movies, you've already lost any point you might have had in writing prose.

 

[SimonDoom]

When you guys start making points on writing prose with examples from movies, you've already lost any point you might have had in writing prose.

I think movies make useful examples because there's a greater chance that most of us have all seen, and understand the references to, very famous movies than books or short stories.

But getting back to the original idea, and in response to something the OP said, sometimes it's better for the reader NOT to know and understand everything from the beginning. Detective/mystery novels and thrillers often start with a murder or violent scene that leaves us wondering what's going on. It might introduce a character, but it creates a mystery that we as readers then want to know the solution to. Revealing background bit by bit can make a story more interesting.

A classic example is Shirley Jackson's The Lottery, where everyone in a small town is gathering in the town square for the annual lottery, but the reader doesn't know until the very end that something terrible happens to the "winner." Exposition would spoil the story.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I think movies make useful examples because there's a greater chance that most of us have all seen, and understand the references to, very famous movies than books or short stories.

Yup. There are important differences between these media, but the idea that nothing from films is transferable to prose is about as helpful as the idea that everything is transferable.

If it were true, people wouldn't be making movie adaptations of books!

A classic example is Shirley Jackson's The Lottery, where everyone in a small town is gathering in the town square for the annual lottery, but the reader doesn't know until the very end that something terrible happens to the "winner." Exposition would spoil the story.

And now you've RUINED IT. Thanks a bunch.

;-)

 

[KeithD]

I think movies make useful examples because there's a greater chance that most of us have all seen, and understand the references to, very famous movies than books or short stories.

I think that's the point. Folks don't know much about fiction writing so they quickly slip into discussing a whole different media and somehow think it's advancing their understanding of fiction writing. It isn't.

 

[intim8]

I think that's the point. Folks don't know much about fiction writing so they quickly slip into discussing a whole different media and somehow think it's advancing their understanding of fiction writing. It isn't.

Movies are fiction writing. It's just that exposition specifically is the part that does not carry over.

 

[VerbalAbuse]

I think that's the point. Folks don't know much about fiction writing so they quickly slip into discussing a whole different media and somehow think it's advancing their understanding of fiction writing. It isn't.

you are not advancing our knowledge, either.

 

[KeithD]

you are not advancing our knowledge, either.

I don't think you belong on the AH. On ignore you go.

 

[KeithD]

Movies are fiction writing. It's just that exposition specifically is the part that does not carry over.

No, they are both storytelling, but they most certainly aren't both writing. They are much different in approach and delivery. I've done both. Have you? Obviously it's a touchy subject for those who've watched a lot of movies but haven't done a lot of writing.