Joshua Palmatier (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
jpskewedthrone) wrote2009-11-02 09:07 pm
jpskewedthrone) wrote2009-11-02 09:07 pm
Entry tags:
Writing: Exposition
OK, now that all of the guinea pig drama seems to be over (Buddy is doing fine, so far), I can finally return to the writing posts I meant to do immediately after Albacon. This posts are based on the panels that I was on at the convention. I took notes at the time, but it's been long enough I don't know what some of the notes mean anymore, or remember what prompted the note in the first place, so this is just going to be me making comments about the topic, rather than an in depth report of what happened on the panel itself. I figured I'd start with the panel:
Exposition: I decided to start with this one because this is something that I struggle with myself. For every book that I've ever handed in, my editor has alway said for the revisions that I need to explain more about the world, that I need to show it. This more or less comes down to exposition. Part of the problem is that I, personally, don't feel that alot of what my editor wants in the way of explaining the world is unnecessary . . . BUT I've had enough people comment on my Throne novels that they wished I'd had more about the world in there that I've realized that my editor is right. (*gasp* Don't let her see this post!)
So, with the new work-in-progress, I've been trying to experiment more with adding in more world elements, and this means messing with exposition. You see, in the Throne books, the story was told through first person, so I introduced elements of the world exclusively through her by having her actually DO THINGS. I really don't like exposition. So everything came through as Varis, my main character, interacted with the world. When she went to the main street in the Dredge to steal food, you saw, through her eyes, the people of the city as they lived their lives. When she fled the Dredge, you were introduced to the "real" Amenkor as she experienced it herself. If there was something in the city that was interesting, but it never crossed paths with Varis, then you never learned about it.
The new books are all in the third person, so I can't use the excuse of POV to leave off the exposition. *sigh* So I've been working on getting in there somehow. Here are some of the other techniques I've been using; note I'm still getting the characters to interact with the world itself as the main method for getting this across.
Dialogue: Of course you can get some of the way the world works across using dialogue. This is tricky though, because an info dump in dialogue is still an info dump. What I usually try to do is incorporate the world information into a conversation that's really about something else. For example, today I wrote a scene where a young girl is recovering from an "illness" and is being taken care of by her father. While he feeds her soup, she asks him about a scene in the marketplace that she witnessed the day before that disturbed her. Her father then explains what the scene was about, thus revealing some of the politics of the world, but at a level that his daughter can understand and it's all disguised through the illness, which is the real focus on the conversation, since the father is trying to figure out what happened to his daughter.
Hearthfire Tale: This is another technique sort of related to dialogue. If you've got some heavy duty history to get across at some point, you can do it by having the characters sit around a campfire and share stories, or they can go into a bar or tavern and hear a hearthfire tale, etc. I was going to say that I haven't used this technique before but it was brought up on the panel . . . but I just realized that would be a lie. I did use it in the book that's "finished" and waiting to go through the rest of the publishing process. At one point my main character goes into a bar to get something to eat and hears the tale of something that happened while he was . . . well, let's just say "away." I needed to get this "history" across because it was the basis of a significant portion of the rest of the book, but the structure of the book didn't allow me to actually to do the story as narrative. So a hearth tale instead. The trick is to make the hearthfire tale sound natural and fit into the story.
Flashback: Ah, the tried and true flashback, where you mix exposition with narration. I probably don't need to say much about this, but the fact that it's so prevalent tells you that it's one of the easier and more effective ways to get in some exposition under the disguise of narration. The problem with this technique is that you REALLY have to be careful how often you use it. If there's another way to get across the information, then you should probably use that instead, even if the flashback would be "easier" to write. If you use them too much, they can get monotonous and the reader begins to wonder why you didn't just tell the story starting way back when, since you're flashing back to "way back when" so often. And they should be thinking that. If you're using flashbacks that often, it's probably a sign that you started your story too late and you need to go back and ask yourself whether you should start it earlier.
Prologue: And this is also a tried and true method for getting across some world story or back story that probably doesn't have anything do with the main characters of the book itself. (It's hard to have the character experience the world elements if they, say, weren't ALIVE during the actual event.) This is where the prologue comes into play. There's alot of discussion about whether prologues should be used at all in anything, and I say that yes, they can be effective. I intend to use one in my new work-in-progress, because those events are necessary to set up the main plot thread of the main novel . . . but then there's a significant time jump to where the main novel actually begins. It seems appropriate to offset these initial scenes as a prologue, even if it's a rather long prologue. It doesn't make sense to call it "chapter one" for example. So prologues are necessary in some books, in my opinion. Are the overused? Yes. I've read quite a few books where I felt the prologue was unnecessary OR that the prologue was actually chapter one and did not need to be offset with the "prologue" status.
And those are the things I've used (obviously) and been playing with for getting across exposition. I've been trying other things as well, but those are more at the line-by-line level and are harder to explain. And this post is long enough as it is. *grin* Hope there was something helpful in there!
Exposition: I decided to start with this one because this is something that I struggle with myself. For every book that I've ever handed in, my editor has alway said for the revisions that I need to explain more about the world, that I need to show it. This more or less comes down to exposition. Part of the problem is that I, personally, don't feel that alot of what my editor wants in the way of explaining the world is unnecessary . . . BUT I've had enough people comment on my Throne novels that they wished I'd had more about the world in there that I've realized that my editor is right. (*gasp* Don't let her see this post!)
So, with the new work-in-progress, I've been trying to experiment more with adding in more world elements, and this means messing with exposition. You see, in the Throne books, the story was told through first person, so I introduced elements of the world exclusively through her by having her actually DO THINGS. I really don't like exposition. So everything came through as Varis, my main character, interacted with the world. When she went to the main street in the Dredge to steal food, you saw, through her eyes, the people of the city as they lived their lives. When she fled the Dredge, you were introduced to the "real" Amenkor as she experienced it herself. If there was something in the city that was interesting, but it never crossed paths with Varis, then you never learned about it.
The new books are all in the third person, so I can't use the excuse of POV to leave off the exposition. *sigh* So I've been working on getting in there somehow. Here are some of the other techniques I've been using; note I'm still getting the characters to interact with the world itself as the main method for getting this across.
Dialogue: Of course you can get some of the way the world works across using dialogue. This is tricky though, because an info dump in dialogue is still an info dump. What I usually try to do is incorporate the world information into a conversation that's really about something else. For example, today I wrote a scene where a young girl is recovering from an "illness" and is being taken care of by her father. While he feeds her soup, she asks him about a scene in the marketplace that she witnessed the day before that disturbed her. Her father then explains what the scene was about, thus revealing some of the politics of the world, but at a level that his daughter can understand and it's all disguised through the illness, which is the real focus on the conversation, since the father is trying to figure out what happened to his daughter.
Hearthfire Tale: This is another technique sort of related to dialogue. If you've got some heavy duty history to get across at some point, you can do it by having the characters sit around a campfire and share stories, or they can go into a bar or tavern and hear a hearthfire tale, etc. I was going to say that I haven't used this technique before but it was brought up on the panel . . . but I just realized that would be a lie. I did use it in the book that's "finished" and waiting to go through the rest of the publishing process. At one point my main character goes into a bar to get something to eat and hears the tale of something that happened while he was . . . well, let's just say "away." I needed to get this "history" across because it was the basis of a significant portion of the rest of the book, but the structure of the book didn't allow me to actually to do the story as narrative. So a hearth tale instead. The trick is to make the hearthfire tale sound natural and fit into the story.
Flashback: Ah, the tried and true flashback, where you mix exposition with narration. I probably don't need to say much about this, but the fact that it's so prevalent tells you that it's one of the easier and more effective ways to get in some exposition under the disguise of narration. The problem with this technique is that you REALLY have to be careful how often you use it. If there's another way to get across the information, then you should probably use that instead, even if the flashback would be "easier" to write. If you use them too much, they can get monotonous and the reader begins to wonder why you didn't just tell the story starting way back when, since you're flashing back to "way back when" so often. And they should be thinking that. If you're using flashbacks that often, it's probably a sign that you started your story too late and you need to go back and ask yourself whether you should start it earlier.
Prologue: And this is also a tried and true method for getting across some world story or back story that probably doesn't have anything do with the main characters of the book itself. (It's hard to have the character experience the world elements if they, say, weren't ALIVE during the actual event.) This is where the prologue comes into play. There's alot of discussion about whether prologues should be used at all in anything, and I say that yes, they can be effective. I intend to use one in my new work-in-progress, because those events are necessary to set up the main plot thread of the main novel . . . but then there's a significant time jump to where the main novel actually begins. It seems appropriate to offset these initial scenes as a prologue, even if it's a rather long prologue. It doesn't make sense to call it "chapter one" for example. So prologues are necessary in some books, in my opinion. Are the overused? Yes. I've read quite a few books where I felt the prologue was unnecessary OR that the prologue was actually chapter one and did not need to be offset with the "prologue" status.
And those are the things I've used (obviously) and been playing with for getting across exposition. I've been trying other things as well, but those are more at the line-by-line level and are harder to explain. And this post is long enough as it is. *grin* Hope there was something helpful in there!
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All I know is that if someone dies at the end of the prologue, that's where I stop reading. I am so sick of thrillers and mysteries that start with some random person being humanized only to have the author butcher them before a page and a half is out. Sheesh.
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Fireside tales can be super--I liked as a kid the Arabian Nights-style story within a story within a story. It can get a little nuts, and not all (or maybe even many) styles of story lend themselves to using it, but it can work out for some sorts of stories.
no subject
And of course, as is standard for me, I then become paranoid about it, and wind up rewriting sections that don't need it, because they include an acceptable amount of Info Dump to everyone except me.
None of which means I have any answers to offer you. Just saying "Hey, there with you."
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Nice post, though. Helpful thoughts for me to ponder.
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I like prologues, but the more I read/hear about them, the more I see people steering clear of them or turning them into chapter one, as you reference above. I tend to think of them as you do... a good way to cover things that occurred before the main character could possibly know about them, that happened long before the plot starts. I'd much rather read a prologue than a flashback, though I can see, obviously, where they fulfill different needs. :D
Undoubtedly I have used/will use flashbacks. Because however I feel about them, sometimes they just do make sense.
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Other options:
A stranger 'round these here parts: Someone alien to the environment is the POV character. They can ask a lot more questions and sit still for explanations. This one can get heavy-handed, of course.
A stranger... Version 2: They're a stranger and no one feels any need to tell them a gorram thing (e.g., they've been captured and enslaved). Now you have the opportunity for their internal monologue to notice things the locals would take for granted. A good example of this is the whole beginning of Nine Princes in Amber. Since it's told in first person, we get to wonder along with Corwin what the heck is going on, and our attention is drawn to all the worldbuilding bits because Corwin's attention is on them.
Grant your gadgets: "Grant your gadgets and go on" is the old advice to not waste time talking about the cool thing you invented for this world, but rather to simply have the characters interact with it without direct explanation, and let the reader infer how important/commonplace/whatever the thing is in this world. These work as little details that worldbuild slowly. To this day I still remember Hanse Shadowspawn touching the sandal of Thufir whenever he went in and out of his door. It's like a mezuzzah to the god of thieves. It was just a little detail that implied so much about the world and character.
Quick expository line: I don't have a problem with a half-sentence of exposition, particularly if it's not done too often and it flows naturally with the POV. "The rimed fields sparkled in the rising sun, and Martin thought it might be time to ask the local priest to perform the Wintercoming blessing, to protect the earth until it woke again." This is a bit of gadget-granting, but if the local priest or the change of seasons is going to be a factor in the story, this is a good way to slip in a reference before it becomes a plot-point. Then the reader is primed for when it does become important.
MY solutions to "diss stuff"
I've tried using a cast of characters like Anne McCaffrey does. Nobody likes it.
Explaining gadgets: Establish a Brand Name for it and write it into the action. Or not. I even use the ® mark; it couldn't hurt.
Exposition: I cast a storyteller (as is traditional for my world) as Official Narrator who can either say everything in 3rd person, or establish that on occasion, the character will join the dialog in 1st person but revert to 3rd when they're not in the scene. My personal example is Urqhuart in "House of Cards".
I have the particular problem of needing to keep a historical timeline, and sometimes a lecture is necessary. But nobody says you have to play it straight all the way through. See: "Schoolhouse Rock". I wrote a filk that explained a chain of 23 volcanic islands that a character went to but we never saw in the story.
Flashbacks: Just keep the fracking time straight and let us know when the wayback trip is done.
You know, I should be writing. Bye.
no subject
I will have multiple view points but from a limited number (never more than 3) of characters, usually going back and forth between each in some sort of pattern. Joe, Susie, Mark then back to Joe, Susie again and then Mark. At first the events going on in the lives of Joe, Susie and Mark may seem totally unconnected, but eventually they will merge. I've tried that 3rd Person Omnipotent, but never can get it quite right. First person... hm... maybe for a short story but I don't think I could do it for an entire novel.
Thank, Josh - as always - informative and entertaining!
Flashbacks
In my first draft/version of BEYOND THE OCEAN'S EDGE, I used flashbacks, not so much to convey backstory, but to close up gaps in the plotline. I'd start a chapter several steps ahead of where the last one had ended, and then use flashback to bring the reader forward to the current spot in the story. I thought it worked well, except a couple "first readers" commented that it confused them. I ended up taking most of it out.
On another note, I sometimes wonder if I have started the story too soon. Based on your remarks about too many flashbacks and other backstory devices indicating starting one's story too late, I don't think I did. By my estimation, I have very little backstory, but perhaps I need more. Perhaps a lot of what is in the beginning should be backstory.
Well, time to BACK outa here!
Dave