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June 24th, 2008
03:27 pm - Seamless Exposition (aka: How to Infodump without Looking Like It)
So yesterday I had an epiphany.
I've known forever that there are a lot of ways to feed exposition to the reader: dialogue, narrative summary, flashbacks, etc. The problem is, I've seen every one of these methods fall flat on its face at least as often as I've seen it succeed. I knew the different ways to infodump, but I couldn't figure what distinguishes good dumps from bad ones.
Here's my epiphany: You have to create an event to tie the exposition to.
Exposition for its own sake is a story-stopper. It interferes with the action, annoys the reader, and is frequently viewed as boring.
Exposition tied to an event progresses the story, heightens conflict (by helping to clarify stakes for the reader), and begins to feel indispensable rather than klunky.
Example: In my work-in-progress, the main character's mother died while performing a dangerous activity. I started thinking about events that might link to this fact and remembered that in Chapter 3 Mikaena's father and uncle are arguing about whether Mikaena should be allowed to perform a potentially dangerous task. It was a relatively minor matter to tweak this conversation so that it explodes into an argument about whether or not Uncle is to blame for Mikaena's mother's death.
It would have made a great lead-in to an expository paragraph about how Mikaena's mother died, but in the end, I didn't even need that. The argument itself conveyed all the important points. Voila! Infodump tied to event = seamless exposition.
Obviously, this technique may not work all the time. But I've already found it extremely useful, and I'm certainly going to be applying it frequently in the future.
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