Archon of Cringe
Minstrel
I used to believe in the show-don't-tell idea until I tried removing as much exposition as possible, and people could not follow my world or story.
At all.
Someone I read in an article said using heavy exposition is like not trusting the reader to pick up on the information.
Well, they can't, from my experience, especially in fantasy, where the mechanics of the world have to be explained and understood to get what's going on. It's what in previous drafts, my anti-heroic protagonist ended up unlikeable and an idiot as I never delved into her head and why she was doing this nor the alternatives she tried, just implying everything.
I don't think entire pages of exposition are needed. I've recently found breaking it up with action towards the beginning of the story and then feeding it in as it becomes relevant is much cleaner and lets the audience know the necessary exposition for the scene. These moments of exposition are broken up by dialogue and story content and then disappear entirely towards the middle and end of my short story or chapter. I also plan on having the first page of the next draft be a 4-5 sentence paragraph of contextual exposition containing the basic concepts for my world.
What do you think of this process, and how do you guys handle it?
At all.
Someone I read in an article said using heavy exposition is like not trusting the reader to pick up on the information.
Well, they can't, from my experience, especially in fantasy, where the mechanics of the world have to be explained and understood to get what's going on. It's what in previous drafts, my anti-heroic protagonist ended up unlikeable and an idiot as I never delved into her head and why she was doing this nor the alternatives she tried, just implying everything.
I don't think entire pages of exposition are needed. I've recently found breaking it up with action towards the beginning of the story and then feeding it in as it becomes relevant is much cleaner and lets the audience know the necessary exposition for the scene. These moments of exposition are broken up by dialogue and story content and then disappear entirely towards the middle and end of my short story or chapter. I also plan on having the first page of the next draft be a 4-5 sentence paragraph of contextual exposition containing the basic concepts for my world.
What do you think of this process, and how do you guys handle it?