![]() ![]() In the first example, your friend is being pretty strange. You mention this to a friend, and they advise you not to get a red car, since they get more speeding tickets than cars of any other color. A red car passes, and they turn to you and tell you that red cars get more speeding tickets than cars of any other color.įinally, imagine you’re thinking of buying a car. Now, imagine you’re walking down the road with a friend. You’re having a picnic and, as they pass you a banana, they casually tell you that red cars get more speeding tickets than cars of any other color. For example’s sake, we’ll take the myth that red cars get more speeding tickets than cars of other colors.įirst, imagine you’re sitting in a field with a friend. ![]() Let’s look at the same information relayed in three different situations. Each is difficult, and yet they share a common truth that can help you nail your exposition. The first is through narration and the second is through dialogue. In writing, there are two ways to communicate this kind of invisible exposition. Great authors subtly mold scenes to make exposition easier, but success rides on their ability to do this without getting caught. – Mike Myers and Michael McCullers, Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged MeĮxposition needs to feel seamless that it’s either information that emerged naturally, or else something the reader ‘noticed’ as they were witnessing the story. Ah, this is where you input your destination-Īustin: Wait a minute… Basil, if I travel back to 1969 and I was frozen in 1967, presumably I can go visit my frozen self, but, if I’m still frozen in 1967, how could I have been unthawed in the 90’s and traveled back to… oh no, I’ve gone cross-eyed.īasil: I suggest you don’t worry about this sort of thing and just enjoy yourself. Luckily, we too have developed a time-travel device to transport you back to the sixties. Sadly, even this device is showing its age, and readers are wise to the trick of throwing in a character just for some shoddy expositional dialogue, à la Austin Powers’ ‘Basil Exposition’.īasil: We have evidence that Doctor Evil has developed a time machine, and has traveled back to the year 1969. Few things shatter that illusion quicker than the author popping their head ’round the door to give them a quick rundown of the salient facts.įor many authors, the fallback is a character who’s there to explain the world (think Morpheus in his armchair, explaining the Matrix). Nowadays, readers prefer realism – they want to suspend their disbelief and treat the world of the story as ‘real’. It used to be that you could have an entire prologue in which a narrator explained everything the reader needed to know. First, though, we have to discuss what you should be trying to do. That’s why, in this article, I’ll be looking at the most effective ways to write exposition. Most important of all, you’ll have to learn how to explain things to the reader without them realizing you’re doing it at all. ‘Exposition’ is the part of the story which explains or establishes things for the reader: who your characters are, what they look like, what they’re doing, what they hope to achieve, and myriad details about the world in which they live. This may mean also explaining things to your characters (for example, ‘magic is real’), but it might mean sharing things the characters already know (for example, that two of them are siblings).Įvery story requires a bit of exposition, but if you’re writing about an alien world, a place where magic exists, or just a group of characters with a complicated history of betrayal and lies, you’re going to have to get good at explaining what’s going on. It’s an unfair reaction, especially when there are so many things to explain. Too much or too little and the reader will notice straightaway, rolling their eyes at your inability to explain things directly. Exposition is one of those horrible parts of writing that you have to get exactly right. ![]()
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