Tip 5: Make sure that the exposition dump fits the scene. Narrate your exposition dump through an interesting character with a good amount of charm or an interesting perspective on the subject matter, so that we can be entertained while absorbing the necessary information. Lets face it, any one of them could sit there and explain the inner workings of paper-making equipment, and we'd be hooked.
Exposition story definition how to#
Check out some Grimm's fairytales, or some Aesop/Hasidic parables for how to condense a good amount of story into a small amount of text.Įxposition and explanation are best left to the experts, such as Morgan Freeman, Patrick Stewart, Ian Mckellen, and Anthony Hopkins. Give the information that you need in the form of a story (sort of like the cliched villain's monologue of how his horrible childhood led him on a quest to world domination), with a beginning, middle, and an end don't just vomit facts. The solution? Give the exposition dump its own current. Tip 3: Give the information in the form of a storyĪ large portion of the dullness in an exposition dump comes from the fact that they are often just lists of information that stop the figurative river's current, and your story-traversing canoe, dead in the water so that you have to paddle through it to get back to the good part.
This is perfectly legitimate the journey will have made your audience ravenous for this last bit of information. However, if you've crafted a mystery by painting a nearly-complete picture of the world through your arsenal of writing strategies and techniques, it may be the case that you need an concise explanation to pull everything together. An exposition dump interrupts the flow of the story, detracts from the forward-momentum, is usually boring, and is usually used in place of artful plot-building through subtlety and action. One of the reasons that exposition dumps are so bad is that the reader does not want it. Tip 2: Create an appetite before providing the buffet. For each unnecessary exposition dump that you avoid, you make the remaining ones that much better. Want to create an epic setup and back-story for your villain? Don't give us a several-page-long biography, show her in a flashback, as a child, standing on a mountain of skulls while carrying a bloody butter-knife. Try to tell your story through subtle details-scenery, dialogue, investigation, action, character development, etc. Tip 1: Do everything in your power to avoid an exposition dump.īy this, I mean strive to limit your grand reveals to only one or two times in the entire story. Today, we'll look at the problems with bad exposition dumps, as well as how to make ours suitable for our stories. Hard as it is to imagine, however, there are the occasional times when this is precisely the awkward puzzle-piece that is needed examples might include epic fantasy intro narrations, concluding moments in a mystery, villain monologues, and many others. Bad! I know-trust me, I slap myself on the wrist every time I find myself doing it. Chapter 7 “From Story to Art” – Section 8 “Exposition Dumps”Īn Exposition-or “information”-dump is a term used for when the writer gives away the story, the plot, or the world directly to the reader, as opposed to subtly telling the story by showing it unfold.
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