Craft Chat CRAFT CHAT: Exposition and How to Avoid Overusing it

[Amber]

You're very thorough Carol-Rose! Nice of you to take the time.

I use what I imagine is a variation of the screenplay trick. Or, I try to use it. I think readers only need to know enough to get them through the scene. So, if they don't need it for that particular scene to make sense, a lot of the time it can be tossed out. Of course, that doesn't fit every circumstance. Often they'll need things for future scenes.

I like exposition in sci-fi. I think how curious a reader is in general plays into how much exposition they're willing to read. If you engage my curiosity, I'm a lot more forgiving.

 

[Carol Rose]

You're very thorough Carol-Rose! Nice of you to take the time.

I use what I imagine is a variation of the screenplay trick. Or, I try to use it. I think readers only need to know enough to get them through the scene. So, if they don't need it for that particular scene to make sense, a lot of the time it can be tossed out. Of course, that doesn't fit every circumstance. Often they'll need things for future scenes.

I like exposition in sci-fi. I think how curious a reader is in general plays into how much exposition they're willing to read. If you engage my curiosity, I'm a lot more forgiving.

Great points, @Amber. Thanks!

 

[RK Wallis]

Thanks for that great advice @Carol Rose. Fabulous. I really appreciate the time you've taken. I find the questions that resonates with me is, 'does this move the story?' I think that was your third point

 

[Carol Rose]

Thanks for that great advice @Carol Rose. Fabulous. I really appreciate the time you've taken. I find the questions that resonates with me is, 'does this move the story?' I think that was your third point

Glad you found it helpful!

 

[Dan Payne]

I think too often authors think in terms of films, rather than screenplays. We're making novels and stories, not films. Part of the joy of a novel is that you don't have to fill in all the blanks. On screen, everything is visible down to the shape of the buttons on the waistcoats; there's no room for the viewer's imagination to play. That's why films are often easier to consume than books.

When describing your character's back-story and motivations? Let the reader fill in the blanks! You know the reasons. Make sure your character is consistent with them. Readers will make their own judgments of why the character is acting in a particular way. It lets the reader identify with and involve with the character far more than if you spoon-feed every morsel, and it gives you the chance to focus on just the bits that have direct relevance to what the character is doing/thinking/feeling at that moment of the plot.

World-building? As Carol said, we don't need to explain the use of and technology behind <insert tech device here>. Just describe how it affects the story, let the readers fill in the rest.

How often have you watched a film version of a book and had to readjust your ideas of how something should look/sound/act, because the version you imagined is not the version on-screen? How often do you read book three in a series and blink because you'd been reading a character all wrong up to now? This to me is part of the joy of reading, and of working in the written word. The idea that stories generate a life of their own.

I suspect that a large part of what George R R Martin is writing into the last few books of his Game of Thrones series is coming out of the minds and conclusions of his fans and the producers of the show, not just out of his head. Harry Potter certainly changed direction as Rowling wrote it, because her readers had drawn their own conclusions that probably turned out better than the initial ideas. I say go with it.

 

[Deleted member 604]

Great Idea @Carol Rose
Will @AgentPete give you a separate room or chat room for this?
Some very useful tips and hints here and it can get so easily lost or missed among all the other threads etc.
Lets start a riot LOL

 

[AgentPete]

Nice to see you again You can now create your own chat rooms...

 

[Deleted member 604]

Blimey Litopia has turned Hilton

 

[Deleted member 604]

And cheers @Carol Rose for giving up your time to do this.
Regarding POV for me each to their own and I think as a writer, finding a POV that suits you and your story is something you have to find for yourself.
And like all things you get better the more you do it.
For me 3rd POV feels very natural than 1st does and is heavily based on genre.
I don't think you can get away with writing Fantasy in 1st because the world needed is so big and like all fantasy, popular fantasy always has a cast of characters.

 

[Carol Rose]

Great Idea @Carol Rose
Will @AgentPete give you a separate room or chat room for this?
Some very useful tips and hints here and it can get so easily lost or missed among all the other threads etc.
Lets start a riot LOL

Putting in a chat room wouldn't be very effective. The discussion should be here, out in the open, so everyone can benefit. Or did you mean to ask if he'd make a separate forum? That's up to him, I guess. But you may have already noticed I linked this thread as well as the post where members can suggest new topics, in the second Craft Chat thread. I did that for the very purpose of not letting these get lost.

 

[Carol Rose]

And cheers @Carol Rose for giving up your time to do this.
Regarding POV for me each to their own and I think as a writer, finding a POV that suits you and your story is something you have to find for yourself.
And like all things you get better the more you do it.
For me 3rd POV feels very natural than 1st does and is heavily based on genre.
I don't think you can get away with writing Fantasy in 1st because the world needed is so big and like all fantasy, popular fantasy always has a cast of characters.

I'm glad you found it helpful.

 

[Tim James]

OK, I'm going to wade in at the start and say that I quite like exposition. (Cue gasps of shock-horror).
But, and it's a big BUT, it has to be relevant and necessary. As Carol says, it either needs to build character, move the story along or provide necessary details.
For my writing, on first draft I put everything in; all the character descriptions, setting, clothing, weather, everything I think of. But then later I edit most of that out. It is really just thinking out loud most of it. I distil it down to the essentials and leave only the best, most important pieces to be woven into the story.
Having said that, if I feel the story needs a detailed description of something, someone or some place, I'm not afraid to leave it in. Exposition has a place and a book without any is going to leave the reader breathless and confused.
In some genre it is positively required, eg fantasy, sci-fi, etc. as a way to describe and ground the reader in an unfamiliar world. But well written exposition is never difficult or boring to read.
Classic whodunnit crime fiction also uses lots of exposition, generally to present lots of red herrings and make the reader have to search hard for the clues.
Having said all that, dumping a load of info at the very start of a book is often not the best way to start. You have to get the reader's interest quickly these days and readers don't like reading a textbook when they pick up a novel. They want to be entertained from the start, so save the exposition for later when they've bought into the story.

Screenwriting is completely different, there for a film script you often produce two things: a script and a treatment. The script has just the dialog and maybe some very basic descriptions of actions or setting. The rest is left to the discretion of the actors and director. The treatment is the whole story written matter-of-factly in plain voice describing in detail all the main scenes, actions, characters and motivations.

 

[Dan Payne]

as a way to describe and ground the reader in an unfamiliar world

Is exposition still exposition if it's told as the character's experience? An exercise I think might be worth trying is to write the same exposition-heavy scene, something from a F/SF sort of setting, twice. The first time you write it as an omniscient narrator, describing as much of the world, environment and setting as you think is necessary. The second time you write it entirely from the POV of the character. In the latter case you might get less world-building detail but much more insight into the way specific elements of the world affect its residents. I also suspect the latter will be far more readable to a modern audience.

Gonna go give that a go now.

 

[Carol Rose]

This discussion has sparked some interesting questions. I'm so glad everyone is finding it useful to talk about. Too much exposition is a point that comes up quite often in Pop-Up Submissions, and I believe we're discovering that a taste for more or less of it is as subjective as everything else in writing.