Begone exposition

So I heard that some people didn't like the fuck ton of exposition I thought was a good thing in the story for some reason.

So I took the only logical course of action.

I axed it. Used a can of Exposition Begone. Go to first chapter, it's spotless.

But don't worry, instead of just exposition, I will tell the history and story, get this, through the characters. What a twist eh?

Comments

[Outlier]

I personally quite liked the background information, but I can see why others did not.

[Darkevony]

You win some, you lose some I s’pose. All of these literary tactics like “Show don’t tell” and things like that only really work if your story can afford to do such. If its pacing dictates that it can take a breather to show all of those details. If the characters sound like they’d be the one to tell that exposition.

There are ways to write exposition dumps without feeling too hamfisted too. One of the neat ways I often see people do it is by making missive chapters, entire chapters written in a Letter/Broadcast/Medium as if being transcribed.

But exposition dumping is not a bad way to write at all. A shame people are conditioned to think that it is, since it’s often a new writer’s crux. Even some of the best stories tell their tales with Omniscient 3rd Narration. Maybe you’ve seen it, but it’s sorta like how The Saga of Tanya the Evil does it. Or even one of my favorite books, “Dragonsong” by Anne McCaffrey.