That seems more like an action-plus-exposition scene to me. But if exposition is defined as "relaying information to the reader in a way that disrupts the story," then how do we talk about how to relay the information without being disruptive? Do we have a better word to use? Because if we use "exposition" as the general category for "relaying information," then we already have a good word for the specific cases where it's done intrusively: "infodump". That seems like it would be easier to communicate a point than it would be if we said "exposition and infodump are exactly the same thing, relaying information smoothly without distracting from the story is something else that doesn't have a name for"
Yes. I thought that your position was that if a scene contained any exposition, the scene was exposition--that if we slapped labels on scenes, that one would get the "EXPOSITION" label and no other label. Did I just misunderstand your position?
I have no problem with one thing being labelled in two different ways at the same time if it fits both labels.
I do what Jannert does. Slanting things that the character would notice. That saves a lot of time and helps reveal the character as well. Another thing is what is necessary to know in a particular scene. Can something wait? Also I try ( doesn't always work ) not to create too many new elements that cannot just be summed up like ChickenFreak said according to earth standards. If it's behaving like a toaster just call it a toaster.
In the OP, I mentioned fantasy stories specifically, because they exist in a setting which is entirely unfamiliar and needs to be explained to the reader, as opposed to mysteries, romance, etc, which take place in the familiar real world. Now, exposition can happen in real world settings. Like Diana Rigg telling Miss Piggy about her childhood. ("It's exposition; it has to go somewhere.") Something like that could be worked into the story proper without monologuing. But when you're talking about something like where dragons came from, or mechanics of spellcasting, or why a small iron tack can take down a powerful faerie lord, then you're getting into something which requires a little more information.
I agree that it requires more information, but to my taste it's still best handled following the same techniques. Like your example of Jedi Mind Tricks - we learn the most about that, as I recall, simply by seeing it in action. "These are not the droids you're looking for," and that's it, the scene carries on. And then, yeah, later we get the teaching sequence in which Obi-Wan explains the force to Luke (and the audience) but even that is done with characterization mixed in - Luke is impatient, Han is cynical, Chewie is roar-y, etc. The story doesn't just stop for a scene (or a few paragraphs) while the audience learns what it needs to know. I think that's the key. Dole things out in small enough bits that they don't overwhelm the story itself. If your character is weaving an illusion over himself - show us why he needs an illusion, show us the basic mechanism of illusion-weaving, and then carry on with the story. Later on maybe he can't do the illusion trick and has to explain to another character why it won't work and we learn a little more. And then a little after that we learn a bit more through a different scene. Keep your purpose in mind - your ultimate goal probably isn't to explain your magic system to readers; it doesn't exist, so why would I want to learn about it? Your ultimate goal is probably to tell an entertaining story, so give me enough about your magic system so I can understand why characters are doing what they're doing, and then get on with the story.
Also keep in mind who your mc is and what kind of information he'd know or want to know. A teenage boy might only know the history of dragons because his grandpa bores him with old stories, or because he's got to learn it as part of his a history assignment - but does the reader really need to know? Does the mc really need to know? or it only important that the boy's been trying to lure a stray baby dragon home so he can train it to burn down the school. As writers we like to think the readers need to know everything - but sometimes they don't.
Defining exposition as automatically disruptive doesn't mesh with the generally agreed-upon use of the term (in lit crit--I'd link the definition, but I haven't enough posts for a link)--it's a necessary part of any story that can be disruptive, but doesn't have to be, and generally isn't in well-written stories. So I think you're right that we need to distinguish between exposition--background information that is necessary for readers to respond to that section of the story the way the writer wants them to respond--and infodump. The trick is anticipating where that line of necessity is for your readers. And heck, it doesn't hurt to infodump in your draft. Just make sure to edit that part down when you start revising. This is a spot where having an alpha (not even beta!) reader might help you figure out what's needed and what isn't in that particular spot. Of course, this isn't getting into questions of style. Depending on what you're trying to do, the digression of an infodump could be in line with your goals. It needs to be clearly marked out as intentional, though, if that's the case.
Hence my disagreement with the idea that we should define exposition in terms of the narrative being disrupted by the information Welcome to the site!
Thanks! I like your tag . . . that idea of trying to tell your audience a great story is, from what I've seen, central to all good writing (even academic writing, oddly). I constantly remind my students that they need to focus as much on the audience as on their main idea.
That's it, in a nutshell. And doesn't just apply to a magic system, but ANY setting-related information.
I agree that exposition needn't be disruptive, But I've seen many examples here on the forum where it is. As soon as I get a whiff of it, I can't help but see the writing as poor, and often feel I'm being lectured not entertained. If I wanted a history lesson, I'd read a text book. When a writer steps outside the the storys present, too often and for too long, I get bored. I like the information to be related to me in a way that makes me feels I'm part of it all, and the best way to do that is to use a PoV character to give that info relevence in the present. If it's not relevant, it's extraneous.
Thinking of a couple of my favorite authors and how they handle exposition/infodumping. The late Iain M. Banks would toss in huge, pages long infodumps, but he'd make them funny. His stories are reasonably serious SF, but there's always a side of comedy when he tells you about, say, an alien race not previously introduced. He never attributed the information to anyone or anything, and looked at conventionally, was guilty of just chucking the information at the reader, but the comedy made the dumps some of the best parts of the books, similar to how "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" just threw passages from its namesake and the Encyclopedia Galactica into the stories where Adams thought they were needed. Another one is the Mars Trilogy, by Kim Stanley Robinson. I've got a love/hate relationship with him as an author, but the Mars books are on the love side of that. At the beginning of each and every chapter, he has an italicized page or two that does some world-building. The stories told in those sections are presented as the folklore of the future, things people tell each other about the early days and mythology of the colonized red planet, but they alse serve to fill in blanks that might otherwise have to be done with chunks of clumsy "As you know, Arkady, regular ingestion of omegendorph can cause a reddish cast to the vision...." Perhaps not to everyone's taste, but I think that, at least for those two authors, the techniques worked effectively.
Just a rant to be ignored. I feel so stupid after reading a thread like this. It becomes obvious why I stopped writing, I get lost in the importance of the minutia. Now all I want is to know more about whifflebirds, Dyson Sphere power plants and really, really want to know what jazz Simpson17866 listens to. I have never felt so inferior as I have since joining this forum; the enlightenment exposes me to things I never knew existed. Somewhere I saw where Oscar Leigh called himself an amateur, all I am is an armature - I just keep spinning around.
1) There's an XKCD about that Spoiler That should be called Wheaton's Second Law: whatever you're talking about, there's an XKCD about that Spoiler: There's also an XKCD about that :D That's a big part of why I love writing so much: I love the ready-excuse to learn random things to write about Jazz, for example. I hate listening to Jazz on general principle, always have, but when I decided that the vampire character in my new Urban Fantasy novel would be a 120-year old from New Orleans, I realized that I needed her to know about the Jazz that had been playing in New Orleans in the 1910s when she would've been a teenager. Granted, I decided that she hates Jazz as much as I do and that she had a very rough childhood growing up as the only girl in New Orleans who didn't like Jazz but I still felt it important to know what exactly the jazz was that she didn't like, so I ended up learning a lot about Bessie Smith, Marion Harris... and specifically found out that Harris wrote a song called "I'm a Jazz Vampire". I'm serious. I was originally thinking that my character was born in 1900 and killed by a necromancer in 1920 on the nose, but "I'm a Jazz Vampire" was written in 1921, so I decided to have my character die in 1923 instead so that her first experience upon waking as a vampire would be that the necromancer was playing that one record over and over and over
Iain not bad, I prefer Round and Round by Ratt however. Simpson17866 I think you are right about xkcd. However you really caught me off guard saying you don't like jazz, I thought you were seeing/hearing/feeling an angle of music that leaves you looking for a secret answer or something. I am not big on jazz but some of it is quite remarkable, I always had the wrong impression of it since Dobie Gillis was on TV and it has taken years to learn to appreciate it. This whole thread about exposition vs infodump presents too many nuances for me to contemplate, I am impressed at the level of thought that a single topic, that seemed sort of simple, can generate. Solving world problems is easier than writing a good book, I believe.
I think sometimes it is better for the characters to explain stuff. That way there will be limits and more later to keep the reader hooked.
