Tess Barron
- Jun 4, 2023
- 8 min read

Part 6: Narrative Type—Exposition

Series Contents:

Why Show, Don't Tell Advice Might Be Holding You Back

Level 3: The Walls of Show, Don't Tell—Narrative Types

Exposition

I chose an image of a baby for this part.

Why?

Because exposition is much like someone you don't know going on at length about their baby that you have never seen. I know that mom. Hell, I think I am that mom. I get it. My kids are the cutest and best people ever created.

Oh! You will never believe what the baby did the other day.....

No. It's ok. I could feel you cringe in my soul.

You get it.

And your readers get that exact same sinking feeling from your exposition.

Now. When I talk about exposition, I mean the technical definition of exposition:

The comprehensive description or explanation of an idea or theory.

We are going to separate exposition here from description and dramatic action.

I want you to keep this in mind because when some people talk about exposition, they mean narrative—or writing that simply isn't dialogue. But that is not right, and we are going to get more specific here.

Here is an example of exposition in fiction:

"A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...

It is a period of civil war. Rebel spaceships, striking from a hidden base, have won their first victory against the evil Galactic Empire.

During the battle, Rebel spies managed to steal secret plans to the Empire's ultimate weapon, the DEATH STAR, an armored space station with enough power to destroy an entire planet.

Pursued by the Empire's sinister agents, Princess Leia races home aboard her starship, custodian of the stolen plans that can save her people and restore freedom to the galaxy....."

Yes. That was the opening of Star Wars Episode IV. (Take note of the serious narrative summary going on there.)

The advice in this part is very straightforward.

Exposition is needed sometimes. I won't even say needed, but it is often stylistically brilliant. Though never in huge chunks that go on for pages. You are writing a story (if you're not, you are in the wrong place, my friend), and any pertinent information should be told through the framework of that story.

So how can we keep our readers from going the way of Barney here?

Let's dig deeper.

Exposition on Immediate Scene

Exposition is not well-suited for immediate scene. There are other ways to get information across to the reader without using it at all (see Narrative Types 1 & 2). However, if you must, it can be done.

Stories written from a 1st person POV are perhaps the most accommodating of lengthy exposition. That is because, generally, 1st person is a deeper POV; therefore, any exposition will take on a feeling of internal dialogue.

The Beginning and End of All Things, sci-fi short story anthology from Bear Hill Publishing

I have a short story in the SF anthology, The Beginning & End of All Things, written under my pen name Turi T. Armstrong. The story includes heaps of exposition and no dialogue except one important speech near the end. But because it is written in 1st person, I was able to make it 99% immediate scene. It was possible because the story is highly stylized and written casually as if spoken.

I imagined an old man telling his story to a young stranger in a post-apocalyptic pub. Another essential aspect that makes this story work is the format itself. It would be impossible to write in this style and keep my reader with anything longer than a short story. Well....at least impossible for me...

Here is an excerpt to help you understand what I am talking about:

In that moment we all deserved to die.

Every last one of us. The machine may have destroyed her body, but it was man that killed her.

For a long time, all I could see was her face when I closed my eyes. She wasn’t a dynamic image; I didn’t get to recall Joyce like some men remember their darlings, all slow motion smiles and spins, flashes of the sweet little moments through a sparkling fog of romantic maudlin. No, the image I was left with was the look on her face when that thing whittled her down to fit into the cavity in its middle. That compartment taking the place of a stomach. Its titanium plates dripped with her blood. And when I’d managed to sever a cable from its pelvic joint with a shovel, blood streamed into it, and it sparked.

I remembered that.

You know, they all say it was the AI that got us in the end, but really it was a technology developed years before that did it. Somewhere along the line, some asshole came up with the brilliant idea to make a machine that gets energy from organic matter. Using the heat generated by the decaying process to charge its batteries.

Sure, it sounded great on paper. Nobel worthy, they said. The problems this could solve were endless, they said. Would change the world.

Well, change the world it did. Because like any other technology worth a damn, the army got hold of it. Before we knew it, they’d created walking war machines that could fuel themselves on their own carnage.

You can read the whole story for free here. But If you want to read more and other great science-fiction short stories, check out The Beginning & End of All Things: Stories of Man. It's award-adjacent!

The Beginning and End of All Things: Stories of Man, sci-fi anthology Buy Now

...Anyway...If I'd chosen another POV, the whole story would become narrative summary, but because 1st person keeps the narrator and reader close, it stays immediate. Not because the events are happening "on stage" before our eyes but because the story is being told on stage by the narrator.

If you want to read more about writing good narrators, go to this post I wrote here.

Deep POV: Write Better Narrators

The second best type of stories for exposition are ones told through omniscient POVs.

But again, only if you have a distinct narrator or if it is written for an audience with a tolerance for it (like historical fiction readers or cozy mystery readers who really want you to describe the tea and cakes your characters are eating and stuff like that).

Like everything about writing, you can do whatever you want, and there are no definite rules. I would just like you to keep conscious of your decisions. Understand that exposition will most likely take your reader out of the immediate scene and into narrative summary. It will also significantly affect the pacing of any scene you add it to.

But Stephen King for examples goes on many exposition tangents that last for pages and he is doing just fine. You find the voice and style that work for you.

Watch that your exposition in immediate scene does not become preachy or author opinionated. Authors often alienate their readers with passages that suddenly (and unnecessarily) become political or moral yard-sticking, criticizing others' way of life. When you write exposition, ask yourself if your characters hold that opinion or you?

But then again, if that is your purpose, who am I to stop you?

I will also contradict what I just said because if moral yard-sticking fits with the story and character, then that might be precisely what your exposition needs.

Exposition on Narrative Summary

Like the Star Wars quote above, exposition almost always becomes narrative summary by default. It's just a natural use of it.

In most amateur writing, narrative summary and exposition are indistinguishable. However, if you have been building your levels of show, you will be able to see the nuances and use them to your advantage.

A basic narrative summary is always exposition, though we have already discussed how you can skew it towards (or turn it into) immediate scene through dialogue and dramatic action. Exposition, however, is not automatically narrative summary.

It can be, but it can also be used as a tool to add rhythm, emotion, and even subtle poetry into the immediate scene.

The following passage from Joe Abercrombie's The Heroes is one I often use as an example of rhythm, but it is also an example of deliberately crafted exposition.

Beck hunched his shoulders and stared at the fire. Not much more'n a tangle of blackened sticks, a few embers in the flame, whipped, and snatched, and torn about, helpless in the wind. Burned out. Almost as burned out as he was. He'd clutched at that dream of being a hero so long that now it was naught but ashes he didn't know what he wanted. He sat there under fading stars named for great men, great battles and great deeds, and didn't know who he was.

3 Things You Can Learn From Abercrombie

Here is another example from my head.

The had sat there for a thousand years and was many men are said to have died building it.

As far as exposition goes, this is seriously lacking in style. Assuming that this line holds no significance to the plot as a whole, I would consider it a throwaway. If I came across this in a manuscript, it would get cut. It would be an unimportant detail that your readers would never remember and adds no meaning or emotion to the text.

Like the narrative type discussions before, your exposition should be wearing multiple hats. It should summarize or describe a detail or idea but also create a tone/image and make the reader feel something.

The above example could instead read...

Slaves labored day and night, stacking stones that took a hundred men to lift, held in place by a mortar of lime and the dead. In the last thousand years, their specter screams have only grown louder as lengthening cracks invite the harsh sea breeze in to whistle through.

Suddenly, we have a much clearer picture of not only the physical wall but also the emotions of our POV character about the wall, historical background, tone of the scene, and possibly more.

Blue Hydrangea Lamp - Bulb and Vintage Round Base

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Exposition on Description

You know what?

I'm hard-pressed to find any worthy piece of advice here. Maybe just try not to describe anything through long chunks of exposition. Unless you can, and it fits, or you want to...I mean, who am I, right?

With any line of description, you should be asking yourself:

Am I adding to the image/tone/emotion of the story?
If I remove the passage, will it make a difference?
Is every word/sentence/paragraph working as hard as it can?
Would this description be more impactful if told through dramatic action or dialogue?

In Conclusion...

I don't expect every author to comb through their manuscripts and check that every word is perfect. Though, I and your reader would be super pleased if you did.

But, your manuscript will be significantly improved if you find one or two critical sections per scene or chapter and ensure those areas really pull their weight.

I'll leave this one here today. Let you go back to your work in progress and start picking it apart.

Next time, a short word on pacing and rhythm as it applies to Show, Don't Tell.

Remember to ask your questions in the comments below, and I will reply as soon as possible.

Next Steps

Here is what you can do for your novel right now:

If you have not started writing yet, then start! Take the script and blocking sheet you made and plow through your first draft scene-by-scene (which I hope you have planned out thoroughly). Factor in:
1. The single emotional impression you wish to make.
2. The ideal reader and how you will manipulate their emotional responses.
3. How you will make your character relate to your ideal reader.
Once you are done, or if you have already written your (now highlighted) manuscript, go through and highlight all the areas of exposition in it with a third color.
Right off the bat, what chunks of exposition go on way too long?
What passages of exposition can you turn into dialogue?
What passages of exposition can you break up with dramatic action?
Is any of your exposition author opinionated or otherwise out of place, pulling the reader outside of the narrative?
Is your exposition, or can it be, pulled into immediate scene by bringing it closer to the character as if it is internal dialogue?