Writing What method do you use for rapid expositions?

[Devils.Advocate]

Of course, the best way for exposition is, in my opinion anyway, plot orientated; like having a conspiracy about magic and mages will inevitably teach readers how magic work in the world.

But let's say you don't have the luxury of doing another plotline, and you just need the information in the story now... NO! Now is too late! You needed that info in the reader's head before the prologue, yesterday! What methods are there?

Massive text bomb by the narrator? Lengthy Q&A session with the first "mentor/NPC" the protagonist meets?

What other ways are there? What methods do you use?

Do you think about exposition at all?

Is there a "learning curve" in your story?

 

[Yorth]

Authors always overestimated how much information their readers need to understand the plot. But, for the sake of argument, let's say that the scene on which you'll build the whole story upon needs the readers to have a certain level of understanding of the mechanics of the world for it to have the same dramatic effect. Well, you can use anecdotes. You don't need your readers to accurately understand the mechanics, you just need a more understandable comparison that focuses more on the effects rather than the mechanics. Many movies talking about the financial crisis of 2008 use this trick to great success-- The Great Short being the most prominent.

Honestly, there are many ways to expose that aren't just dialogue and massive text bombs. You just need to make it interesting, even if unorthodox.

 

[IvyVeritas]

With the possible exception of hard sci-fi, I can't really imagine a situation where you need a large amount of exposition that can't be grown gradually and organically through normal scenes.

Consider the following options:

1. Are the details truly important? A lot of times, you'll find that they aren't. Generally during my second and third drafts, I delete a lot of wordy, unnecessary sentences that I had originally written to provide little bits of background information, because when I read through it a second time, they simply aren't needed and they detract from the flow.

2. Are you starting your story in the right spot? Maybe you don't need a prologue with all the back story, because it makes more sense for your main character to learn the information gradually, along with the reader.

3. Are you providing the detailed exposition in the right spot? Maybe it would make more sense for the full truth to only be discovered at the end of the arc or the book, thus giving you a lot more room to grow the reader's knowledge organically, building up to their final understanding of how everything fits together.

 

[AliceShiki]

I try to avoid this kind of exposition like plague, like... If I really need to do some exposition to make a scene work, I might simply change that scene instead.

I like limiting my narration entirely through the PoV of my Main Character, so I don't want the reader knowing anything my MC doesn't know.

On the other hand, if something is obvious and has been known for my MC a long time before the story started, I can't simply make some exposition about knowledge that is natural to the MC, since it just feels too unnatural to me. Instead I try to just show things organically through the scene.

Overall, I prefer to not do exposition at all, I prefer to let the story build itself and let the readers understand the world as its events unfold.

Also, a benefit of not making too much exposition, is that while the readers will get a good gist of how things work, they generally won't get the finer details that are clear in your head... So if for some reason you need to change some of those details, you can do so without much issue because the readers were never aware of them in the first place. (for as long as they didn't have a bigger ramification of course)

 

[steryx]

Some times I just skip some exposition and made it into simple sentences as long as the readers can understand the scene.

 

[BenJepheneT]

Authors always overestimated how much information their readers need to understand the plot. But, for the sake of argument, let's say that the scene on which you'll build the whole story upon needs the readers to have a certain level of understanding of the mechanics of the world for it to have the same dramatic effect. Well, you can use anecdotes. You don't need your readers to accurately understand the mechanics, you just need a more understandable comparison that focuses more on the effects rather than the mechanics. Many movies talking about the financial crisis of 2008 use this trick to great success-- The Great Short being the most prominent.

Honestly, there are many ways to expose that aren't just dialogue and massive text bombs. You just need to make it interesting, even if unorthodox.

the best thing I've learned in a week, thanks manen

 

[MrDarkness1234]

For me I use exposition to make the reader have questions instead of answers but sometimes my ability as a writer still is nowhere near the level I could write it perfectly or in its best shape.

 

[NiQuinn]

You're not obligated, as the author, to explain every little detail about the world you created. What you are obligated to do is to tell a story. Sometimes, that means skipping tons of info because that would just bog down the whole scene you're trying to tell. Being that I'm very against wall of texts and other massive text bombs of the sort (though I think I'm prone to this myself), one way to cheat is giving your readers added info that won't go against the flow of the story through epigraphs.

epigraph / ˈepəˌɡraf/ n. - a short quotation or saying at the beginning of a book or chapter, intended to suggest its theme.

Spoiler: sample

It could come as one page in-between chapters or something short that comes before a chapter:

Spoiler: sample

In this way, you can invent an educational text from an imaginary person from your story and mask it as quotes in epigraphs. However, do note that not all readers like this. Sometimes, others think this is lazy writing and just skip it altogether.

 

[BenJepheneT]

However, do note that not all readers like this. Sometimes, others think this is lazy writing and just skip it altogether.

Heed no notice to those deformed, mentally challenged troglodytes. They would most likely sexually identify as limestone than to understand literature.

 

[Yorth]

the best thing I've learned in a week, thanks manen

glad to be of use.

 

[FortySixtyFour]

Take all of yer requisite world-building exposition and compile it into the big ol' block of an exposition dump. Now, ya don't give it to readers like that--we've gotta cook it first. Yer gonna wanna submerge the whole block into a large cast-iron cooking pot we'll call "yer fiction" for the sake of metaphor.

Now, even the hungriest reader still won't have tha stomach to digest it like that, so yer gonna need to pour in about a 1:1 solution of water and genre soup stock and bring tha whole mess to a steady boil. When ye've got a good froth of new ideas to skim off the top, yer about ready to eat. Mash yer 'character perspective' ladle in and give the pot a good stir to make sure yer exposition isn't clumping, then serve to readers. Now rememba, ya don't serve up a stew by dumping the entire draft on 'em, you've gotta ladle it out and spoonfeed it to the lads bit by bit, or it won't last.