Exposition and Stuff

“Clutter and confusion are mortal enemies of good fiction.  The thing to strive for is the clean, sharp, simple line.” Dwight V. Swain

Far too many times I’ve read manuscripts that are so full of exposition I feel as if I need a road map just to understand what’s going on. 

What is exposition?  Exposition is whatever your reader needs to know about what happened in the past (don’t confuse with back story or flashback) in order to appreciate what’s going to happen in the future.  This is also the one element of writing that can lead to author’s convenience.  Author’s convenience is where they have a character ask an inappropriate question of another character that then gives a long drawn out explanation of the yet another character’s physical or emotional background. 

How do you write successful exposition?  Motivate your reader to want to know the past.  Make the facts important to the story and to the people in the story by allowing your character appear to be normal and intelligent human beings, not some creation.

1. Pare down the amount of information you give the reader.

2. Break up essential content.  Don’t give the reader half a page of history in one drawn out explanation.  Weave the information through the story. 

3. Make someone need the information. 

4. Tie that information to the action of the story.

5. Motivate a character to pay attention to anything you want your reader to know.

6. Be subjective when you give your character the information.  Let the reader be on the inside as your character experiences it, in viewpoint.

7. Keep dialogue in a normal tone.  Let no one talk about anything he wouldn’t discuss normally.

This is a complicated element to understand, but a necessary one for a beginning writer not to fall into.

Until next month, keep writing and I’ll see you in print.

Karen N.