StandingWater Creations

--This should be at IOTW and I will probably write something (or copy this) over there as well--

This comes in response to a question in the comments by a man named John Hattaway (and, no Rebecca, this is not me playing at multiple personalities) who wanted to know what I meant (over at IOTW) when I used the word exposition in description of something Neil Gaiman wrote.

What is exposition?

Exposition is what is used, most frequently, when it comes to technical manuals or non-fiction. Essentially, it is the process of telling something rather than showing it to the audience. When you show something, there is a different feel to the way it is written and, ultimately, how it is to be received by the audience. For technical manuals and non-fiction, the reading audience expects to be given a lot of information and not have an exploration of material shared over the course of the work. As a result, the technical manual will tell you a lot of things. How to do this, why that works, and more.

However, when you move from non-fiction into fiction, one of the rules of writing is show don't tell. Tell is when an author drops out of a direct interaction with the POV character (often the protagonist) and just tells the audience what is happening or what took place. Because exposition (tell) is necessary for all stories and all forms of storytelling, the level of exposition in a book (story, television show, movie, and more) is weighed against the narration of the story - or how the story is being shared with the reader (or the share).

Essentially:

Cassandra stood at the edge of the Great Mississippi River and looked across it to the other side. She knew, without making any kind of a move toward the river, that she would never be able to cross over. Something in the back of her head told her, that she'd tried before, once or a thousand times didn't matter. No matter how much she wanted to cross the river she couldn't and in this incarnation she wasn't about the waste the effort.

What I did there was tell the audience a lot of information.

In Stardust there are points where Gaiman tells the audience that his protagonist and the star visited towns, had adventures, and ended up where they needed to be. At no point do you actually visit those towns, share in those adventures, and see actually how they got to be where they were meant to be.

So, consider:

"What are we waiting for?" Thomas asked.

Cassandra turned and looked at her familiar, her friend, and her horse. "We're not waiting. I am watching," Cassandra said. She brushed the two Navy Colt .45's on her waste.

"What are you watching?" Thomas asked. He bent his head to the ground and at some grass, sniffing at the ground and nickering at the same time.

"Nothing," she said, turning away from the river and approaching Thomas. She patted his flanks and grabbed at one of his hocks to check the hoof for rocks and to make sure the steel shoe was still in place. Thomas continued to eat.

"Why do we keep coming back here?"

"Because," Cassandra said, running her hand over Thomas's flank and grabbing another of his hocks.

The difference between the first and second blockquote element of the blog is essentially I am telling you information and I am allowing you to share in the relationship between Cassandra and Thomas. You are a part of the scene and, because I have chosen who the POV character is and who you, as the audience, have to trust as the narrator. However, as the writer, I also have to make sure you, as the audience, receive information that is necessary and pertinent to the flow of the story.

A professor of mine called the show aspect of story telling, "What does the little bird see?" What that means is that the POV character has to be able to see what you as the writer are sharing with the audience and as a result discover what is happening in the world around that character with him or her or it. This is a good rule of thumb for show.

However, when it comes to tell, or exposition, you are literally sharing something with the audience that the audience needs to know in order to be a part of the story. As a result, books (all story telling medium) has to balance the amount of show with tell and some books will go so far as to give percentages that should be followed. Author Robert Parker actually uses very little tell and a lot of show in his novels. Neil Gaiman uses a bit more tell in his stories as he moves the audience along with them to get them through time or to another point in the story. I noticed that Tim Pratt (writing as T.A. Pratt these days) uses a smaller percentage of tell than Gaiman does.

You can go through a lot of books and pretty accurately judge when an author drops out of show-mode and into tell-mode. When that happens the writing may remain engaging, but as an audience you feel yourself removed, a little, from the narration of the story and pulled along until the next section - one of the reasons why fiction is more show and less tell.

Hope that helps.

John Hattaway | smokingpen | Alicia Grey | Clockwork Princess | Cassandra West

Real Heroes Fly