A few years ago, I believed that exposition (meaning description or explanation) made for bad prose. Every story I wrote was a long list of events, composed entirely of scenes. Eventually—and thankfully—I realized how misguided that belief was, but I think a lack of exposition is as common a mistake among emerging writers as overwriting. My inkling is that this mistake evolves from a fundamental misinterpretation of the common advice “show don’t tell.”
Surely, part of “show don't tell” is meant to decrease exposition, but that is not the full and accurate meaning. In an earlier Kernel on writing rules (spoiler: I don't think there actually are rules), I suggested this reframe regarding the popular truism, “Not ‘show don’t tell,’ but, is my prose grounded in the reality and experiences that I want my reader to have?” It's easy to see how this can be read as “delete your exposition,” because what is more grounding and experiential for a reader than scene? And yet, if we approach the advice with more nuance, asking how each moment affects the reader's experience and sense of the story’s reality, then we find that it is the functions of exposition rather than the volume of it that should dictate its presence in your stories.
So, what is exposition? At its most basic, exposition is everything in a story that is not scene or dialogue (if you want to make it more confusing, google “expositional dialogue”). Exposition can also be broken down into subcategories including setting, interiority, emotionality, time passages, backstory, and so much more. The ability to break out your moments of exposition into a subcategory is, in my opinion, the key to creating good exposition, because it implies that it has been imbued with specificity, for a purpose, and is intended to enhance the reader's experience.
When your exposition is specific, it creates an illusion—your telling feels like it is showing. Consider these two setting examples:
There was a wide expanse of rolling green hills.
The hills rose and fell like great algae-coated whales bounding toward the horizon.
The two examples are both expositions. They tell the reader the same information about the setting, but the second example paints a more vivid picture in the reader’s mind.
Now, consider these two examples of backstory (and emotionality!):
Mary was uncomfortable in the country, because she was from the coast.
Mary felt her heart race each time she looked at those unnerving hills. She was not from a place of greenery, but from a gray-blue stretch of rugged cliffs that pierced an angry ocean.
Not only does the second example paint a more vivid picture, it adds context to the information presented in the first set of examples.
Here's one more pair of examples, this time, illustrating specificity in the passage of time.
Mary lived there for almost a year before she found the courage to escape.
The green did not last, however. With time and cold, the hills turned the brown of winter seaweed then the salted slate of rock. On those frozen mornings, she would wake believing she'd been transported home, and the pulse in her throat would be slow and steady as the crashing of waves. In the Spring, her unease returned with the verdant sprigs that pierced the surface, and when, once again, the green whales bounded toward the distance, she knew that she, too, needed to return home, whatever the cost.
Perhaps you disagree with me, but in each pair of examples, I would be much likelier, as a writer, to cut the first, and, as a reader, to stop reading after the first. I challenge you each to try this exercise:
In a draft, highlight each line of exposition, ask yourself the following three questions, and edit with your answers in mind.
How would I sub-categorize this exposition?
What should this be adding to the reader's experience?
What specificity is missing?
My kernel of advice: Write exposition with purpose and specificity.
Inspiration, Information, & Insight
Shelby hit a big milestone this week: she finished the first draft of her novel and submitted it to her workshop group! While Shelby is excited to have crossed this checkpoint, she knows there’s still a long road ahead to see this book to its polished and (hopefully!) published form.
After a week in Florida, followed by a week in Colorado, Sarah is now in Connecticut and is looking forward to six weeks of focused reading and writing. She’s treating the trip like a writing retreat, even though she has a husband and four children in tow, and she’s planning to use the time to revise a personal essay and a short story for submission and begin writing a novella. While driving 20 hours across the country, Sarah listened to Weather and Dept. of Speculation, both by Jenny Offill, and she highly recommends them both as a master class in language, wit, observation—and, above all, brevity.
Natalia has been hopping from rural Illinois, to Chicago, to the Tetons out West for various weddings. Safe to say her writing has been limited to a maid of honor speech and her reading has been limited to a single novel she is critiquing in a group she belongs to with her fellow Kernelists.
Neidy spent the week celebrating her 32nd birthday, traveling to and from Chicago, and officiating her best friend’s wedding.