Done well, it’s smooth and seamless, almost invisible
Exposition means different things to a writer, depending upon context.
In the context of the essay, exposition is a rhetorical mode. An expository essay is one that explains, in contrast, for example, to a narrative essay, which tells a story. (The Story of Songbirds Is A Story of Sugar is an expository essay; Frozen Alive, a narrative essay.) Exposition combines freely with other forms, meaning that one may use various techniques to explain a concept or process or historical period or whatever: comparison/contrast, process analysis, example, even narration — whatever tools aid in the goal of explaining something, of making that information to be conveyed clear.
In the context of the three- or five-act dramatic structure, applicable most particularly to a movie or play, exposition is the opening act, the one that sets the stage for the story to come. The one that provides the background information, the world as it is for the character or characters before the story events unfold.
In the context of a written story — a piece of flash, a short story, a novella, a novel — exposition has an entirely distinct, far more fluid character. It is a literary device for introducing background information that readers will need to better understand the story. This might be information about events, about the setting, about individual characters, anything important for readers to know as context for the events of the story. And it can be delivered through narration, through dialogue, through interior thought, or through other media evoked as part of the story.
And most importantly, whatever the exposition covers, however it is delivered, it can be done well. Or it can be done poorly.
Large chunks of exposition delivered through narration is called “info dumping.” Exposition worked unnaturally into dialogue results in “As you know, Bob” conversations, where what the characters are saying to one another is clearly for the benefit of the reader. Such conversations do nothing to advance the story, nothing to develop characters. And they come off as entirely false. You might have either of these expositional faults in an early draft. The key is not to have them in your final draft.
Considerations of historical period and genre
Noticeable chunks of exposition are generally frowned upon in the contemporary aesthetic, hence the pejorative term. It’s considered the mark of better, more sophisticated writing to tease out the information more slowly.
Exposition was not always so regarded. You’ll often find lots of it in older works, including classics of the literary canon. It’s used freely, for example, in European and American novels from the nineteenth century. Styles of writing differ across time. And — where it is done well, where the narrative is particularly engaging, the language particularly fine — you will find more of it today in literary fiction. If the narrative style of a particular story, or a particular author, tends towards exposition, but the strategy is handled very well, the voice is strong and sure and engaging, this can fly in literary fiction. You will find it less often in genre fiction. In genre fiction, there’s a strong bias against it. The aesthetic is very much show, show, show. Avoid tell.
Considerations of experience and style
For someone new to writing, it can be a lot easier to put together a story by explaining a lot of things — that is, by telling a lot of things — rather than showing them. In that sense, conveying the story through a lot of exposition can be thought of as an early draft approach. You get all those thoughts down on paper, and then you know more about your characters. Now you can work to trim that unwieldy exposition back.
To convert some of it to natural dialogue (not exposition disguised as dialogue), pregnant with meaning. To convert some of it to a stray wisp of a thought, just giving us a little hint and at just the right moment, often something we have to hold onto as a piece of the puzzle. To convert some of it to smaller bits of narrative used elsewhere, not all of it in one clump. And maybe even to do away with some of it, and to let the story itself lead us to that information. Another approach is almost entirely, if not entirely, to do away with all exposition and to handle the conveying of information almost purely by subtext.
There is no one right way to handle backstory and other elements of telling. It depends, in part, on the writer’s sensibilities and style. It depends in part on the effect that’s wanted. If a piece is to be published, it can also depend on the particular editor’s sensibilities or the style that the publication itself tends to favor.
Every writer has to find their own style. And to work within the context that best suits that style.
exposition (or lack of it) illustrated
The lottery,
Shirley jackson
Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” is a well-known short story, often anthologized. Take a close read through it here (or here).
Notice how the author carefully builds up for us a picture of what’s happening. She doesn’t begin by explaining what the lottery is and how it works: she doesn’t lay out the entire backstory for us. The title has primed us for the event to come, of course. We know there’s to be a lottery, but from there, the information comes slowly. The people of the village begin gathering. And then there’s Bobby Martin, what he and the boys who mimic him do. What Bobby and Harry and Dickie then do. Then the men begin to gather, and then the women. Tension builds. We don’t know exactly what’s happening here, our first time through the story. We’re given tidbits of backstory, interwoven into the narrative, such as the opening sentences of paragraphs 4 and 5, respectively:
The lottery was conducted — as were the square dances, the teen-age club, the Halloween program — by Mr. Summers, who had time and energy to devote to civic activities.
The original paraphernalia for the lottery had been lost long ago, and the black box now resting on the stool had been put into use even before Old Man Warner, the oldest man in town, was born.
That fifth paragraph, in fact, is virtually all exposition. But by now, our curiosity has been aroused and we soak in the information, adding it to the stockpile we are amassing.
This is exposition carefully measured out and worked into the story by way of narration. Later will come more background info through dialogue. This exposition is often more fragmented and elliptical: we as readers must work harder to put the puzzle pieces together. That work requires engagement with the text.
Throughout the story, we must put those pieces together ourselves. The author does not do that work for us. By contrast, you can imagine a summary that explains the history of the lottery and how the lottery itself works. A couple of paragraphs of this plunked down at the beginning would rob the story of its power.
Coral Glynn,
Peter Cameron
Coral Glynn is a literary novella, beautifully conceived and written. A novel offers the writer a lot more space to develop character and plot, which means that the expanse with which it deals with both cannot be emulated in a short story. A short story must focus on one incident or one short space of time. More so than a novel, a short story may be elliptical. But in terms of technique, how a novel handles the delivery of contextualizing information can be instructive.
Here is how this story opens:
That spring — the spring of 1950 — had been particularly wet.
An area at the bottom of the garden at Hart House flooded, creating a shallow pool through which the crocuses gamely raised their little flounced heads, like cold shivering children in a swimming class. The blond gravel on the garden paths had turned green, each pebble wrapped in a moist transparent blanket of slime, and one could not sit on either of the two cement benches that flanked the river gate without first unhinging the snails and slugs adhered to them.
The excessive moistness of the garden was of no concern to anyone at Hart House except for the new nurse, who had arrived on Thursday, and had attempted, on the two afternoons that were somewhat mild, to sit outside for a moment, away from the sickness and strain in the house. But she found the garden inhospitable, and so had resolved to stay indoors.
She was the nurse, officially at least, only to the old lady, Mrs Hart, who was dying of cancer. Her son, Major Hart, who had been wounded in the war — he seemed to be missing a leg or at least part of one, and moved his entire body with an odd marionette stiffness — did not, officially at least, require a nurse.
Coral Glynn was the third nurse to arrive in as many months; it was unclear what, exactly, had driven her predecessors away, although there was much conjecture on the subject in the town. First it was supposed that the Major was perhaps a Lothario, and had made disreputable advances, although he had never acted that way before — in fact, he had always seemed to hold himself above romance of any kind. Then, when the second nurse, who had been quite old, fled as fleetly, it had been assumed that Mrs Hart was impossibly difficult, since dying people often are, and Edith Hart, even when in the bloom of health, had tried one's patience. The new nurse-the third-was young again, and was expected to be seen escaping, either from unwanted seduction or abuse, on any given day.
There was one other person in the house besides Coral and Mrs and Major Hart: an elderly woman named Mrs Prence, who acted as cook and housekeeper. Before the war there had been a real cook and a maid, but now all the burdens of the household fell upon Mrs Prence, who bore them with a grudging dutifulness.
Hart House was several miles outside of Harrington, in Leicestershire. It stood upon a slight rise in the water meadows beside the river Tarle, near the edge of the Sap Green Forest. There were no other houses within sight, for the meadows often flooded, and the air was damp and considered bad.
As you see, the scene is set here for us. We’re introduced to the place and to the main characters. We’re given a bit of history to set the context and prepare us for the events of the story, including mention of the Sap Green Forest, which will become pivotal. Following this is a bit of narrative summary — narration that gives us a snapshot of Coral at work, but not with dialogue — and then we go into the first of many scenes between Coral and the Major.
These opening paragraphs represent exposition, the world of Hart House laid out in its essentials before the story proper begins. This is the narrator, a third-person omniscient narrator, speaking directly to us. But the language is lively and engaging. The promise is of an engrossing story to come. And this is also literary fiction, where exposition beautifully done does not present an issue.
Let’s take a closer look at a scene. This one is still early on in the book. It’s the third time we’ve seen Clement, both of the previous times with Coral, and it’s the first time we’re meeting Robin. The scene opens with this bit of backstory:
Clement Hart was a solitary man, but he did have one friend, a friend of his youth, whom he loved. He had known Robin Lofting since they were boys; they had gone to grammar school together; their mothers had been friends and they often spent the summer holidays together in Tismouth, where the Loftings rented a seaside cottage. Robin still lived nearby and they met every Thursday evening for a drink or two at The Black Swan.
We are given just enough to orient us for the conversation to come. In that conversation, we’ll discover the nature of Clement and Robin’s relationship, something of their history together as boys, the relationship of Clement with his mother, including a disastrously failed relationship with a woman for which he blames his mother. But all of this information, all of this backstory, this exposition, comes through the vehicle of dialogue. And very natural dialogue at that.
Here is how that conversation begins:
“How is your mother?” asked Robin.
“I don't know,” said Clement. “The same, I suppose. How dreary it is to die like that. I’d much rather a bullet through my head.”
“That's a cheery thought,” said Robin.
“Well, I just wish people would go when their time is nigh.”
“This is your mother we’re speaking of.”
“Yes, and you know better than anyone I’ve a right to feel as I do. I wish I had a jolly, happy mother like yours.”
“Oh, it wasn’t all lemonade and iced cake with Rosalie.”
“Yes, but at least she liked children. Or other people, for that matter. I don’t think my mother ever met a person she liked. Including my father, of course. What a wretched woman. It’s all I can do to stop myself rushing upstairs and holding a pillow against her face.”
“Have you got a new nurse?”
“Yes,” said Clement.
“Ancient or nubile?”
“I rather like this one. She’s a nice girl.”
“Nubile?”
“You’re such an ass, Robin. As if you ever cared for nubility.”
“Nobility, perhaps. But we are men drinking in a pub, so one must say certain things, mustn’t one? For appearances’ sake, if nothing else.”
“Oh, God. I care nothing for appearance. I’d like to go away somewhere and live a hermit’s life.”
“People once had hermitages, I think. To be picturesque. They’d build false ruins and follies on their grounds. But I don’t think that happens much anymore. But you could be a hermit in the Sap Green Forest. Dolly could bring you casseroles.”
“How is Dolly?”
“Dolly never varies. That is part of her charm. Perhaps the entirety of her charm. She is a little like a dog in that way.”
“Robin, you oughtn't compare your wife to a dog.”
“Oh, but I mean it in the nicest possible way. l love dogs. Except for Dolly’s, of course, which are thoroughly execrable creatures. They are constant in their characters, as she is in hers. I wish you would marry.”
“Why?”
“Because then we would be equal. We would both have wives. The story would be complete.”
“What story?”
“The story of us,” said Robin.
“It is complete,” said Clement. “It ended long ago.”
“But not in any formal sense,” said Robin. “The narrative stopped, but it did not really end. Did it?”
“I haven't the least idea what you’re talking about,” said Clement. “Oh, don't make me sad,” said Robin. “You know exactly what I’m talking about.”
“But it is pointless to talk about it. It is forgotten.”
“I don't think it is. And the fact that we are talking about not talking about it proves this.”
“Shut up,” said Clement. “Go and get us another drink.”
Robin went up to the bar and got two more pints of ale. As he sidled back across the crowded room, he saw his friend sitting alone at their little table in the dim lamplight, staring down at his two hands, which were placed before him on the table-top. He appeared to be studying them for some obscure reason, as if he might be asked to identify them from a large assortment of severed hands at some later date. Robin stopped for a moment, struck by the beauty of Clement’s sad face, and felt his love for his friend as an almost unbearable pain.
He pretended he was a waiter and placed two glasses on the table, one before Clement and one before his empty place. “Anything else I can get you, sir?”
Clement looked up at him, and saw the love in Robin’s eyes, and looked away quickly. “Sit down, you fool,” he said.
Robin sat.
At this point, we’ve gotten the gist of the relationship of the two men and a little of their history, as well as some other information, including a second and seemingly off-handed mention of the forest. We’re introduced to Dolly, who will soon enter the story, where we’ll be able to see her in her own right, apart from Robin’s appraisal of her. In the remainder of the conversation, we’ll get a good deal of Clement’s history, as well as other details, the whole of which go a long way to setting us up for the story, and its complication, to come.
And what you see in this scene is largely how things proceed across the novel. The intricately interwoven pasts of these characters, which affects each of them in the present, is delivered at times through comments from the omniscient narrator directly to us, at times through what they say to one another, and at times through what they think or feel, either filtered as in the dialogue just above or more immediately through free indirect discourse, where we’re given access to a character’s thoughts in the manner of a first-person viewpoint.
Hills Like White Elephants,
Ernest Hemingway
For a writing style that neatly seems to sidestep exposition altogether (there is description of the setting and movements in the moment, but no backstory), give Hemingway’s Hills Like White Elephants a close read.
The treatment in this story is very much like a script. We are given little else other than what they say to one another and how each reacts. There are no interior views. We are never told what either of them is thinking. We must surmise.
Can you see the undercurrents of tension between the two characters bubbling up to the surface? And you can tell, can’t you, what it is they are talking about? Yet nowhere does the author say any version of “The atmosphere between them was strained.” Nowhere does the author tell us anything about their relationship to this point, anything they’ve done or been to each other, anything they’ve felt. We are just plunked right into the moment, with the two characters having a very natural conversation — and no narrator giving us anything outside of this moment.
Hemingway is known for, and often much admired for, this strategy of writing. That doesn’t mean that all the rest of us need to write just like he did. But it is useful to study how he did it and what the effect of it is.
telling and showing, the perpetual dance
So exposition is “telling,” but readers are not generally aware of it unless it’s poorly managed. When there’s too much of it, all at once, in the narrative, readers experience that (whether or not they know the term) as info dumping. When it’s awkwardly and unnaturally handled in dialogue, whether there’s much of it or not, readers experience that (again, whether or not they know this term) as an “As you know, Bob” sort of conversation. Exposition thinly disguised.
Sometimes poorly managed exposition needs only to be trimmed and reworked, whether as better, more astute narrative or as natural, more elliptical dialogue. Sometimes what we’re told in narrative should be dramatized in some way, so that we can discover for ourselves whatever judgment or background was before laid out plainly. Sometimes it can be excised altogether.
There is no one way to solve for exposition poorly handled, almost invariably a feature of early drafts. And no one, right way to handle exposition well. How you decide to address it will have to do with your own writing style, your own aesthetic of story.
Just remember that most stories will call for some telling, as well as plenty of showing.