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Published: 2015-09-22 21:31:10 +0000 UTC; Views: 16582; Favourites: 136; Downloads: 0
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5 Tips for Writing Exposition Dumps
Chapter 7 “From Story to Art” – Section 8 “Exposition Dumps”
With Links to Supplementary Material
An Exposition—or “information”—dump is a term used for when the writer gives away the story, the plot, or the world directly to the reader, as opposed to subtly telling the story by showing it unfold. Bad! I know—trust me, I slap myself on the wrist every time I find myself doing it. Hard as it is to imagine, however, there are the occasional times when this is precisely the awkward puzzle-piece that is needed; examples might include epic fantasy intro narrations, concluding moments in a mystery, villain monologues, and many others. Today, we'll look at the problems with bad exposition dumps, as well as how to make ours suitable for our stories.
Tip 1: Do everything in your power to avoid an exposition dump.
By this, I mean strive to limit your grand reveals to only one or two times in the entire story. Try to tell your story through subtle details—scenery, dialogue, investigation, action, character development, etc... Want to create an epic setup and back-story for your villain? Don't give us a several-page-long biography, show her in a flashback, as a child, standing on a mountain of skulls while carrying a bloody butter-knife. For each unnecessary exposition dump that you avoid, you make the remaining ones that much better.
Tip 2: Create an appetite before providing the buffet.
One of the reasons that exposition dumps are so bad is that the reader does not want it. An exposition dump interrupts the flow of the story, detracts from the forward-momentum, is usually boring, and is usually used in place of artful plot-building through subtlety and action. However, if you've crafted a mystery by painting a nearly-complete picture of the world through your arsenal of writing strategies and techniques, it may be the case that you need an concise explanation to pull everything together. This is perfectly legitimate; the journey will have made your audience ravenous for this last bit of information.
Tip 3: Give the information in the form of a story
A large portion of the dullness in an exposition dump comes from the fact that they are often just lists of information that stop the figurative river's current, and your story-traversing canoe, dead in the water so that you have to paddle through it to get back to the good part. The solution? Give the exposition dump its own current. Give the information that you need in the form of a story (sort of like the cliched villain's monologue of how his horrible childhood led him on a quest to world domination), with a beginning, middle, and an end; don't just vomit facts. Check out some Grimm's fairytales, or some Aesop/Hasidic parables for how to condense a good amount of story into a small amount of text.
Tip 4: Use an interesting voice.
Exposition and explanation are best left to the experts, such as Morgan Freeman, Patrick Stewart, Ian Mckellen, and Anthony Hopkins. Lets face it, any one of them could sit there and explain the inner workings of paper-making equipment, and we'd be hooked. Narrate your exposition dump through an interesting character with a good amount of charm or an interesting perspective on the subject matter, so that we can be entertained while absorbing the necessary information.
Tip 5: Make sure that the exposition dump fits the scene.
Yes.. this is where I tell you that unless you are writing a farcical spy spoof story, you probably shouldn't have the villain monologue about his plan as he slowly begins the process of cutting your hero in half with a laser. In fact, your protagonist will probably have to go out of their way to actually get the information dump they need—searching out old man Jenkins who just so happened to be doing janitorial work in the lab when the first zombie got free. To create a good exposition dump, it cannot be just an easy, simple, lazy, convenient tactic of storytelling. It must be something carefully crafted, planned, executed, and fought for by the protagonist as much as by the writer.
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Comments: 51
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Another very good example of an infodump in the Harry Potter novels is the The Tale of the Three Brothers.
I seriously need to find more words to tell how much I appreciate the effort you're putting into writing these articles, because the phrase "This is brilliant, as always!" does get repetitive after a while.
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Haha, well there's no need 
I agree, the story of the three brothers as a tool for that part of the story was extremely well done. I actually hated the entire subplot involving the Deathly Hallows (just because I thought it overcrowded the main plot, and was rather convoluted) but the way Rowling told the legend of the deathly hallows and created a very interesting and engaging exposition dump with it, was indeed excellent.
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"Lets face it, any one of them could sit there and explain the inner workings of paper-making equipment, and we'd be hooked." Yep, I agree with you on that.
In fact, it's because of these info-dumps that I struggle to read long stories now and why I prefer flash fictions and shorter stories.
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Yes, they can quickly become tedious and tiresome.
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One of the reason why Tolkien was a great writer - his info dumps weren't very long and the 'heavy information' were put in the appendices at the end of The Return of the King.
One of the things I'm doing to avoid info-dumps is give bits and pieces over time instead of everything at once. A lot of it has to do with the main character's past that catches up to him/her. However I don't want to give away everything right away(for one thing its a comic) cause I'd lose the reader's interest in everything else.
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Yes, and that is especially important to the storytelling medium of comics. Nothing is so disheartening as to pick up a comic or graphic novel that starts with a solid brick wall of exposition.
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Finding out writing a comic is a different game than writing a straight up story.
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I'm sure it is. And I'll really experience it first-hand when I give the medium a try.
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One thing you'll realize is the story flow is a lot different. Can't just switch scenes in the middle of a comic page like you can in a written chapter.
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In my opinion the pensieve in Harry Potter was a great exposition device. It allowed Harry and the readers to see the events unfold firsthand without the books having to shift perspectives.
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I agree... it worked fantastically.
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This was a challenge for those older science fiction stories that first appeared in pulp magazines, or were otherwise published in pieces. Perhaps the best example of this would be Isaac Asimov's Foundation trilogy. He had to use a number of devices to catch readers up on the previous story lines, and in one case used the mechanism of a girl's essay paper to get the story's history laid out and the reader up to date.
This did not work so well in the first Star Trek movie, where the producers thought it necessary to go back through all the characters in order to have the movie make sense to moviegoers. Epic fail!
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That's really cool, and sounds like it required a lot of craftsmanship to do effectively. Did you particularly enjoy Asimov's work?
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I grew up reading Asimov, so I guess I must have, LOL. I still have about 20 or so of his books.
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haha, will have to look into it then
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Someone I know asked me to review a novel they'd written. The first chapter was 3000 words of exposition. I stopped reading at that point, and suggested that they write the 3 prequel books first, because that's how much story was rolled out in that first chapter, or simply cut it, and reveal the information some other way. I think many authors, myself included, are so desperate to set the scene, we end up saying too much at the start, rather than actually starting the story. The problem is, of course, that the author and characters know things that the reader needs to know before parts of the story make sense (thinking back to your piece about critique, and pointing out terms that the characters know, but the reader doesn't). So how do you find that happy medium?
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The way I handle the problem of that balance is going for relevancy. For example, if I were to start a story with the readers knowing everything the protagonist does, right off the bat, it would require an entire book devoted to his entire childhood, all his memories, everything he ever thought, learned, or said. So I gradually reveal information as it becomes relevant. Protagonist sees a snake, remembers an experience where his uncle put a snake around his shoulders as a child, acknowledges his fear of snakes and hatred for his uncle. That way you keep the audience and protagonist at the same level by giving them a little more info whenever it is necessary. And, of course, that may require an info-dump if the protagonist is familiar with the world you've created and the reader is not... in which case you would utilize strategies for just making the info-dump as short and as entertaining as you can get away with, and preferably after you have created a hook. After that, it's just a matter of getting reader feedback and tweaking, adjusting, and redrafting until it is good. Prologues through the perspective of someone other than your protagonist is another good way of introducing the world and catching up the reader before beginning the story. But once again, it has to be god enough that it actually entertains, hooks, and interests, rather than just dully explaining everything away.
I hope that answers your question. It was a very good one.
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I've never written a prologue for any of my works, but I suspect at least one of them could have a very dramatic prologue that would remove the need for an early exposition. The problem is, I fear it might be a bit too much for my target audience. It would end up being a horrific death scene set fourteen years before the story starts, but the book is intended to be for pre/early teens - oh the nightmares I could cause with that one!
Have you covered reader suitability yet? I can't remember.
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No, not yet... mostly because I haven't completely decided where I stand on the issue. Although I would think that as long as you follow a code of ethics when writing, then you wouldn't really need to worry about reader suitability. Those who are interested and are mature enough for the themes and content your present (so long as you do not try to sneak them in where they're not expected) will be drawn to that story, and those who don't just won't bother to pick up the book. I think writers need to be more focused on making the contents of a book suitable for its genre/type... so no decapitation in Harry Potter, no murder in Wall-E, no rape scenes in Jurassic Park, etc...
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There are several things to think about here. There is no age guidance for books like there is for films. There is nothing (no laws, etc) to stop an eight year old picking up "50 Shades of Grey" for example (although I'd hope they'd be encouraged to read something of higher quality than that). But then, as you say, an eight year old would probably find it tedious and uninteresting, not understanding what's going on. So you are right that authors need to be aware of what they're presenting to their readers. I've certainly removed a lot of curse words from my work as I've re-drafted. But at the same time, I don't want to shelter my readers too much. Part of the thrill of reading is the brutal honesty in the words. I will have to be careful what I do - part of me things that my young readers would find an accidental death right at the start gripping, but part of me thinks it's too heavy. I can only "suck it and see" I guess. (Idioms... another topic I've scraped my knees on a lot recently - I use them, but worry about cliches).
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Do you mean infodumps in a similar way to the way that the Old Wise Man/Storyteller in epic fantasy will sometimes talk at length to describe the world of the story, or history?
In a similar vein to Brom describing history in Eragon?
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While I have not read Eragon--yes, that is one type of info-dump.
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Thanks for the answer. I'd probably prefer to refrain from that sort of exposition, but it seems to be difficult.
But at least now I know how to avoid having a "talking head".
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Are you familiar with the Dune chapter introductions? Do you think they work as good infodumps?
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I have not read dune (it is on my list, among high fantasy that I know I HAVE to read), so I couldn't say. But judging by my other experience with high fantasy, there are likely more info-dumps than I necessarily prefer. However, the high fantasy that i have read (Robert's Jordan's work, most recently) has illustrated how to do them well. So it probably comes down to a matter of preference.
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Dune as high fantasy? That's a first, well, to each his own. And how Jordan does it?
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That's what people have given me the impression of. Like I said, I haven't read it, so this is all playing on ear.
Jordan has many long exposition dumps, but they're usually framed in the way of an epic legend being told by a bard--similar to how you would imagine hearing legends in a romanticized version of the middle-ages. So the effect serves to make them interesting, as well as to make his world-building more three-dimensional.
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Ow, thanks for the watch. Was it because of the market info-dump idea?
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Yeah, and you had some good perspectives on stuff. And I wanted to check out some of your writing when I have time.
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It's not wrong. Its balance of science and fantasy is around the mix of Star Wars, but with greater (deeper and wider) world-building and detailed ecology. And please ignore the stuff his son wrote later, it's more cow-milking than anything.
That's kinda used for rpg books. I have some sections of my setting being posted through stories, making it less didactic.
A way I tried (and have yet to suceed) to tell stuff was to have a character passing through a market, hearing this and that, bits of people talking. And many or all of the written bits would have info.
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Sounds good--I heard that I need to stop at the end of book three.
I do like how video-games do it as well. Bioshock (the original) in particular gave plot information brilliantly, when they weren't constructing it with more subtle strategies. I'm going to relay it and see if there is anything I can add to this list from it.
I've tried that as well, and had no luck with it. Currently, my strategy is to give the information through a mentor character... or several. But I'm going to keep playing with it, and see if I figure out something that works better, as bards don't really work for any of my stories so far.
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There are people which dislike the later books. The fourth is different but stands by itself, millenia after the previous three. The fifth and sixth start a storyline which was left unfinished by the author's death. What his son wrote to complete the saga is disapointing.
I didn't play it, do you have an example?
Good luck then.
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Well they built the world and gave away the plot through ongoing audio journals of citizens of the destroyed city. You never met most of these citizens, and their stories were not always directly related. But they were engaging and ongoing short-stories that actually felt believable as personal diaries. Lots of games have tried to imitate the style and with little success because they couldn't imitate the inherent draw of the diaries themselves, even apart from how they related to the overarching plot.
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Short of in-game vignettes/flash fiction, then? They must have them on youtube, I'll check it out.
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O... M... G...
Stop whatever it is you are doing and start reading Dune right now!
Okay, I'm kidding, but Dune is a classic. Everything that Frank Herbert ever wrote (or wrote thereafter) is in this book somewhere. The combination of science fiction, epic drama, character studies, planetary ecology, romance and intrigue make for a rollicking good time.
In fact, I think it's time for another re-reading myself.
Enjoy!
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haha, like I said, it is on my must-read list
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This is great advice. I've always been a strong advocate for not exposition dumping, and having this all laid out so nicely here is really helpful. Thanks! 
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No problem! I'm glad you approve
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Oooh, this is great! I'm gonna be needing to do a lot of exposition in the next few chapters of my book...
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The fantasy world I built is complex (almost 10 years of worldbuilding went into it). The process of revealing and exposing it through story is an interesting challenge, to say the least. Thanks for these tips.
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Omg! I rarely do exposition, but one I did it, it screwed up badly.
Now I know.
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Haha, I do too... way too often
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Something to avoid and how to avoid doing it, interesting!
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