Extended spoken recount versus expositional flash back

[The Din]

I have my hero arriving in town shortly after an ambush where his damsel is kidnapped. (I know it reeks of cliche, but there's more to it than that.) The story of the ambush is a bit of a doozy (1000+ words), though pivotal to the story. At the moment I have an eyewitness explaining the event through dialogue, pages of the stuff. Just wondering if coming across such a dialogue heavy few pages would sour the reader, especially being mostly one sided.

I have experimented with using exposition instead, ie:
The fellow set down his tankard. 'I can see you won't let me drink my beer in peace until you hear the sordid tale, so sit back, shut up, and lend me your ear.' Words began to spill from the man's lips. They painted pictures of pain and betrayal, pictures that burned like acid and dragged him kicking and screaming into the harrowing scene...

The damsel and her protector rode into town, unaware of the soldiers lying in wait... blah blah blah.

It works to do it that way, but it feels like cheating and lacks the personality of the speaker who can otherwise impose his views on the event, ie:
'The disfigured wench and her greybearded lover rode into town, as sorry a pair as I've seen this side of a graveyard fence. If only they'd known then what awaited them...'

Anyway, just wondering if I can get away with such a big chunk of dialogue, and if so, how would I punctuate dialogue within dialogue, ie:
'The man dragged on the reins when he saw the soldier. "Get out of here girl, I'll keep them busy." (' or no as its technically the end of paragraph?)
(' or no as there is already "?) "Not without you!"

Thanks in advance.

 

[sashamerideth]

If I were going to be hunting down someone that had kidnapped my lover, I wouldn't be sitting around while some windbag told me a long tale. I would be riding out with a fresh horse, and dragging the windbag with me so he can tell me the important stuff as I track down the people that now need their insides to be on their outside.

If you want to do a lot of exposition then I would go the flashback route, or else break up the monologue with questions, actions, and other things to grab interest.

 

[The Din]

If I were going to be hunting down someone that had kidnapped my lover, I wouldn't be sitting around while some windbag told me a long tale. I would be riding out with a fresh horse, and dragging the windbag with me so he can tell me the important stuff as I track down the people that now need their insides to be on their outside.

If you want to do a lot of exposition then I would go the flashback route, or else break up the monologue with questions, actions, and other things to grab interest.

Let's just say its not not so easy as that (injured, can't ride, villains are too far gone to catch up and too many to overpower anyway, damsel is not his lover). Thus the hero has to plan his rescue, heal, recruit, etc.

 

[JCFarnham]

I would always prefer the exposition to be told the way that has the most emotional immediacy. Perhaps in this instance that would be having it told through someones PoV. I'm not honestly sure what else to tell you, as you'll need to see what works for you... It could go either way to be honest. You could get away with the dialogue just as much as you could with the flashback.

It's one big massive "That depends". Sorry I'm not being helpful

 

[void141]

I've never had problems with reading too much dialogue - if you make it easy to read, it doesn't matter how long it is.

However, what concerns me is this vast knowledge of the incident that your eyewitness possesses. It doesn't seem realistic to me - eyewitnesses not involved in the action rarely have pages of stuff to tell, especially for such a one-scene event as this ambush. Is it possible to maybe make him know less - possibly only the stuff which is plot-related, without too much ornaments - and thus make him talk less?

This is only guessing, of course, since, from what you have given us, I can't really tell what is the true nature of your eyewitness.

 

[Jabrosky]

I faced a similar dilemma a short time ago, but have decided to go with the flashback approach. It's preferable to having a long infodumpy dialogue line IMO.