On Exposition

Exposition: the act of expounding, setting forth, or explaining.

        Exposition is an essential story element--the part that explains character backstories, social context, and so on.  When well-crafted, exposition can heighten a story's drama.  Unfortunately, exposition is notoriously difficult to craft well.  Consequently, poor exposition is sadly commonplace even in otherwise-fascinating novels, and it has become one of those areas in a story, like long descriptions, that readers tend to skim through rather than devour along with the action- and conversation-oriented parts of the prose.

       The art of effective exposition lies in putting the right amount of information in the right place.  It must flow naturally with the rest of the story, neither dragging down the pace nor leaving out vital detail.  No single formula works for all instances of exposition; a writer may let fall such pearls of information amidst the current action or during dialog with a "foil" character (such as Sherlock's Watson), or the writer may choose to let readers intuit the backstory from what happens in the "present."  The challenge of this lies in finding the right place for this tidbit or that, and accurately deciding whether a detail is truly vital or just personally interesting.  

       Too often, exposition induces eye-rolling for stating the obvious--or for stating what's necessary in an improbable manner, as in an unrealistic conversation or through a ridiculous plot device.  Other times, exposition interrupts the prose in a startling or chronologically confusing manner, bores the reader with unnecessary length, or incites impatience for hinting at some past event that it never fully explains (What happened to Zuko's mother!?).  Exposition in first-person narratives is particularly hard to weave seamlessly into the action; the characters know their own backstory and thus aren't likely to think about it in their minds, and they aren't likely to share their more private, formative details in conversation.  Some writers remedy this by narrating the exposition as if the story were the main character's memoir--the character then having the benefit of hindsight and a reason for elucidating the readers--rather than as if the story showed the character's thoughts and actions of the moment.  Aside from bona-fide epistolary novels, this seems to me an imperfect solution, but it's one we've become accustomed to in literature to the extent that we may not stop to realize it's actually illogical.

       For all my head-knowledge about effecting excellent (or execrable) exposition, I still find it difficult to apply; it feels a bit like I'd imagine juggling cake batter would feel--messy and unwieldy.  I cringe when I realize I've manhandled it, yet my attempts toward improvement seem only to reshape the mess rather than to firm up the dough.  (Please excuse the sudden metaphor if you feel it needs excusing; odd though they are, metaphors often express best the inexpressible.)

      As a writer of a rather complex world with rather a comprehensive history and highly-developed character backstories, I often (such as now) find myself with more information than I can reasonably and effectively expose, leaving me with the arduous task of cutting many interesting thoughts from my pages.  Betwixt instances of that painful task, I must, section by section, wrestle to break the necessary exposition into small chunks and spread it appropriately.  And then I redistribute and cut some more and reword and reorganize all while plagued with indecision and the looming sense that it is still all so utterly dull.  I'd hoped this post would help me articulate my thoughts on the matter and thereby gain insight for my current project that has me struggling with several paragraphs of unobliging exposition that simply won't fit where I want them to.  Instead of easing the exposition into a natural place, like setting a kitten back in its bed where it can curl up like the stereotypical, idyllic image in a picture book, I feel as though I'm trying to cram a great, writhing tomcat into that same kitten-sized bed.  So far, the cat is winning.  At the moment, he and I are staring at each other, our sides heaving as we pant for breath.  Perhaps it's time to make a bigger bed or try again with a smaller, better-tempered cat.