Is this a cheap trick?

[KittyOfSteele]

I've always thought, when people bring questions like this to the forum, they already know the answer, but for some reason, need convincing.

I think that some of us learned the wrong lessons instead.

In one of my current works in progress, I introduce a character who is a history teacher by profession, specifically so he can several times accidentally slip into lecture mode and explain things I want the reader to know. Too cheap a trick?

I'm thinking of having my protagonist, who is a physician, start giving counter-lectures just to gently let the minor character know what he's doing.

-Annie

I don't think the mechanism of delivery of the information is important, but the information on itself is:

Some people are using the expression "cheap trick," even if to say "it's not." I myself used the word "clunky." So I think the crux really is, how necessary is it for the reader to have this information/data/description/worldbuilding?

When it's really unnecessary and ponderous, that's when it's clunky and maybe even cheap.

How cheap it is depends on how much of it is just the author performatively flexing their own knowledge or imagination, without any regard for Chekov's Gun.

This is what I mean with the wrong lessons: you don't want to do a Tolkien and perform a loredump for the sake of lore. A character whose personality trait is slipping into lecture mode is fine, we teachers are like that, and plenty neurodivergents are like that too. The thing is that you must strike a balance between how important is this information, and how annoying it can get. You don't want to bore your reader with loredump, but you also don't want to annoy the reader enough to see them wishing for said character to die:

If you don't want him to become Professor Exposition, give them an actual role in the story. Give a reason to be there: the other characters need his expertise for something later on, but until that happens he's a huge annoyance. Getting distracted by anything that catches his attention, not being able to keep up with the others, getting kidnapped by bad guys, refusing to engage in some activity because he considers it unethical or something.

Doctor Jones Sr from "The Last Crusade" springs to mind.

Also, don't make them like they know everything about the world, as if they created it themselves.

 

[Cacatua_Galerita]

I just watched it. A guy summons his fellow faculty members to say goodbye. What exactly is so blatant about their gathering?

Clearly, our ideas of what makes a masterpiece differ.

A bus driver, a chicken sexer, a hand model and a sous chef wouldn’t bring the same knowledge base to the room. Their interrogation and postulation of the main character’s claim would be far more limited than the serendipitous array of PhD’s gathered in the movie.

But, agreed; ‘masterpiece’ is probably overstating it, compared to the likes of 12 Angry Men (1957), which similarly stays in a single room, uses no special effects, just relies on the strength of the story and interplay of characters to carry it. Still, The Man from Earth is a memorable story for me, years later.

 

[Candy_Kane54]

https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftse3.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DOIP.vnwcfXtAsJSFXuKLzmG7TwHaEK%26pid%3DApi&f=1&ipt=034f675c845158c2c4d4c592d6c96fcc13dcae2d60069ba826899233032ed894&ipo=images
This is a 'Cheap Trick"

 

[TarnishedPenny]

Done well, it can be very useful. Overdone or done carelessly, it can be dismal.

 

[LetsMisBehave]

As always, it depends on how it is done. One of my better-received early stories involved a man looking for an expert on Richard III and a flirtation involving discussing his most famous mistress.
It's not cheap if it plausibly establishes a connection between the two characters without derailing the story. Another less well-received story discussed the plot of Measure for Measure, which, in retrospect, went on for a hundred words too long.

 

[Rob_Royale]

All things in moderation.