Exposition: An Introduction

I've been reading a manuscript my friend is working on. He's an experienced technical writer, but doesn't have experience writing fiction. When I gave him feedback I mentioned exposition. He had no idea what I was talking about. So I'm posting this in the hopes that I can give a basic explanation of what exposition is and perhaps give a few tips on how to avoid some common pitfalls.

What is exposition?

Exposition is information that you give to the reader so that they can take part in your story. More precisely, it is information about setting, characters, and relationships that your reader needs to understand the actions, ideas, conflicts, and events as your story moves forward.

Think of the phrase, "Once upon a time..." This phrase is a cue that the narrator will now explain where/when the story takes place, and who is involved. It may help to look at events without exposition.

Example: The man shot the gun three times.

In order to understand this sentence, we need more information. That information is called exposition. It's information that sets up the story-it sets the stage.

What is not exposition?

Although everything you share with your reader should inform them, it's not all always exposition. Dialogue is not always exposition. Descriptions are not always exposition. Events are not always exposition. Action sequences are not always exposition. Good news though. Each one of these tools can be used to make exposition more palatable.

Problems with exposition.

In many traditional models of plot, exposition comes first. Next comes rising action, which leads to the climax, and then the denouement (the resolution).

One complaint with this model is that exposition is placed at the beginning. When exposition is clumped together in one large block of text it's called an exposition dump. When exposition is poorly explained through dialogue, it's called "maid and butler".

The goal is to have a balance between telling your audience information they will need to understand the story, and actually telling the story.

Solutions

So how can you share exposition without boring your audience? Here are a few ideas:

1. Spread it out - Instead of explaining your setting, characters, and conflict all up front, share it as you tell the story. Just make sure that your reader has time to absorb the info before they need it to understand the story.
2. Dialogue - Let your characters say something (or think if your writing gets into your characters' heads). But be careful to make sure it is something the character would actually say. As a rule, you could probably avoid starting sentences with "As you know..."
3. Action Scenes - Have something exciting happen and tell the reader little details on the way.
4. Description - As you describe the scene, you can easily include details that set up the story. When you describe your characters, talk about that scar they got because they're excitable and can never turn down a good fight.

You might get the gist here that exposition can be told just about anywhere. It can also be told after the fact, depending on the type of story you're telling (e.g. a mystery where a murder takes place and then we find out who dunnit later). Just make sure that the exposition flows with the rest of the story. It should always compel the reader forward. If it doesn't, then you should find another way to let the reader know.

Here are a couple more links:

Brandon Sanderson Talks about Dialogue

A definition of Exposition

Wikipedia