Is Exposition Really That Bad?

Originally published at: https://shanniiwrites.com/2018/07/08/is-exposition-really-that-bad/

What makes people hate exposition? How can we reveal information without making it seem artificial?

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Haha, love the inner monologue exposition example :joy:

I mean, if your intention was to hide the exposition and you failed, then you probably did it wrong. But not hiding exposition and breaking the third wall can sometimes work out really well for example with Rick in Rick and Morty.

I never knew the term audience surrogate but I like when it is used in stories, it feels very natural.

I loved the part about dialogue. This is something I struggle with and I think it will be useful to go over that paragraph when writing in the future. I used to have lots of exposition in dialogue, but yeah. I’ve realized that it comes off as weird for most characters.

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I really like that basic exposition in stories :smile: I can’t be the only one, right? Those “monologues loaded with information” seem totally realistic to me, maybe because I’m just overthinking everything :joy: But the methods and tips you gave are really a good way to do it instead of going for those monologues. But for me, the “Audience Surrogate” is overused, too many stories use that method and I want to know things before the character does :joy:

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It’s reminder time again, @Bloggers. Shani’s sixth blog post. Do you struggle with making exposition interesting and fear that readers will bore of your story before it begins? Try not to worry and have a read of this to find out why it’s so important.


Remember that if you really enjoyed this blog, feel free to recommend it (it’s similar to liking it). This will help with it being higher in the results of search engines too.

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omg i do struggle with this-
time to read up!!

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Yay. Happy to show you how helpful these are then

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okay
ngl i almost didn’t finish reading this since i’m… clearly not the intended audience /lh

allow me to disagree

Basically, you can’t avoid exposition without creating a mess of post-modernist, experimental garbage that ends up making no sense and being there just to not make sense. So let me ask you an important question before we go on: do you want to create garbage?

okay this is the part i have most of an issue with, since not all written works i’ve read (and loved) have exposition
if i may, i want to bring up Chekhov
a lot of his stories are alike a photograph, a still of a moment in a bigger narrative, and they have little to no exposition
right now i can mention Oysters and Misery as two great examples of that
they may have some exposition? depending on what you consider exposition
they don’t, however, give the reader context as in "background information about events, settings, characters, or other elements of a work"

still, they’re brilliant pieces, pieces that have managed to bring grown adults to tears (i’m talking about an entire class of 60 people here)

nothing close to post-modernist, experimental garbage

so no. not all pieces of writing need exposition to be good or to make sense

also, on the experimental part?
art is MADE TO experiment
so don’t let anyone tell you that your experimental pieces are garbage because they’re experimental

there’s so much yet to create, we should never shy away from breaking the rules a little to make something that’s properly ours

that said, yes, exposition should be used sparingly, and there are good ways to add exposition
the examples Shannii brings up are all very good examples of how to use it too, so try em out if you wanna~

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Added a couple tags

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Wait is bad…?

Ima go read

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