Exposition-scarce Writing

[sozme]

I wanted to start a discussion on writing with as little exposition as possible. Do you know any authors that do this?

I've noticed that in sci-fi and fiction (particularly in science fiction), there tends to be extreme amounts of exposition. I realize this is a necessary element in exploring the various settings, and certainly adds wonderment to the experience. Peter F. Hamilton is particularly big on this. Kevin J. Anderson as well, though to a lesser extent.

But then I've found that the most entertaining books tend to be the ones that are very short on exposition and much bigger on showing the action and letting the reader make inferences about what is actually going on. At the extreme end of this style, there are those top-selling self-published books in the sci-fi category on Amazon (BV Larson comes to mind). These authors tend to use a single POV and write in 1st person to enhance the style even further. These books sell extremely well, despite having some rather obvious plot and structural issues, because they are entertaining enough.

At the less extreme end of this spectrum are people like Joe Abercrombie. There is enough exposition in there to ground you, but not enough to make you feel like the story slows down too much. In the case of J.A. in particular, I noticed that he tends to mask some of his hard exposition with a strong character voice and relating various world-building and backstory aspects to deep POV.

I've been thinking about this whole issue of exposition quantity a lot lately. In the current story I am working on, there is a gap that takes place in which the focal character is captured and spends two weeks in a prison camp. The capture takes place at the end of one chapter, and the story picks up in the next chapter about two weeks later. The reader isn't given specifics on where the character is taken, so there is a pretty big change in setting.

In figuring out how to start the second chapter, I came up with versions that spend one to two paragraphs explaining what happened, and trying to ground the story into the new setting. But then I tried a few versions where the focal character is simply up and moving, and engaging in dialogue, and the information on what happened to them is essentially implied from the description, external dialogue, and internal dialogue. It makes the reader work a little bit harder to figure out what's going on, but for some reason, I think it's more satisfying.

Anyway, what are your thoughts on this whole issue?

 

[Abernovo]

Have you tried our own Jo Zebedee's books? Strong character voices. Little extraneous detail, yet still full stories. I like that, as it allows me to paint my own picture. Another author I've found good with character voice but not too much exposition, despite being on the harder end of sci-fi, is Nancy Kress. Love her writing.

And one more. Strong characters, good story, medium exposition (mainly in a couple of minor infodump explanation speeches) - Becky Chambers. I know some people are going to find her too fuzzy and cuddly, and in opposition to their personal pr...er...views, but she has solid stories which develop through the characters' actions.

See, I want to know what's going on, although a bit of mystery and intrigue good up to a point (don't be obscure just because you can). That said, I have no need to know the colour of every wall, the history of every family. Paint the outlines and the background colours, and I'll fill in the minor details in my on head. But you do have to give me enough detail so I can visualise it, and so I know you can visualise it, as well. If that makes sense?

 

[ctg]

Anyway, what are your thoughts on this whole issue?

The problem with the exposition is that without it, you have limited amount of tools available to develop the story. So you have no choice but to either flush the reader with information or then drip it in and layer the story. Most of the writers have problems with the layering. It is not an easy thing to do in practice. But you get better at it over the time when you remember that you're building the story on that information.

Your job as an author it to manage how much you let out and how much of it is true. If you need to give false info, do it. Go bold and make the reader to doubt that the information they've received is true. Just remember every great lie has a bit truth in it. All your readers are humans, they will recognise human things in their writing. So when you write exposition make it meaningful and don't go rambling. Be humble instead.

 

[RX-79G]

Have you read much William Gibson? Peripheral, his newest, is one of the more extreme books in presenting a world that demands exposition, but the author purposely writes from the perspective of characters that live in this world, so the reader does a lot of patient head scratching trying to figure out what is going on from the clues dropped in dialogue. Part of the enjoyment (or difficulty) of the book is the mystery of what the hell is going on - what is this world? I loved that, some people are going to find it confusing and hate it.

A sci fi writer can get away with not including much exposition if they sticking close to the usual tropes - writing essentially unsurprising sci fi elements. You know - space marines, spaceport miscreant, alien settler type of Heinlein stuff. We automatically fill in those blanks. Which can be fun for a page turner that hinges on very few actual speculative plot elements. But it makes it easy to dismiss barely sci fi at all.

The only other way to go, as far as I can see, is to write something where the plot events are the exposition. Herbert's Destination Void is a story that documents a feverish attempt to create an AI: The characters are building many of the sci fi world elements in the book from scratch through their actions, rather than modifying an existing speculative situation. It is still exposition, but it is simultaneously action and dialogue, so there is never an expositional break from the action. You typical super hero origin story can take this shape - Spider Man begins with a normal person in our world who undergoes a transformation and comes to understand his new reality at the same pace the reader does.


Sci fi is one of those genres that is attached to exposition so closely because the whole point of the genre is to present plot points that are so novel that they often wouldn't work at all in normal fiction. We want to be exposed to these fantastic places and spend time in them, which is hard if we never come to understand what's at all fantastic about it. You could rewrite Othello as sci fi, but what would be the point?

 

[Jo Zebedee]

As @Abernovo mentioned above (ty!) I don't use much exposition at all. The main reason (and I think it's quite Abercrombie-ish, this) is I never move outside the characters and what they know. Now, sure, I could drop into an expert's frame of mind to get them to tell everyone what's happening, but that would be contrary to what I want to write - which is, essentially, stories where you could be living through it.

This has two consequences:

I get a lot of comments along the line of great characterisation, sf told like it was happening to you, so close it's pretty squirmy when things get tough, that it's original for the genre. That's the upside.

The downside is I also get comments like no one knows what my aliens look like, there isn't enough revealed for everything to be clear to the reader, that my characters do stupid things (well, yeah, they do - people do) that my sf doesn't feel like it normally does.

So, yeah, it would seem to be a genre that has some level of exposition at its core and part of that might be to do with worldbuilding, and some of it to do with imparting cool ideas. All I know is exposition bores the living hell out of me and I don't, especially, want to write it and it is possible to get away with less of it than people think so long as you don't mind knowing that the approach will leave some of your market blinking and wondering wtf...?

 

[Brian G Turner]

the information on what happened to them is essentially implied from the description, external dialogue, and internal dialogue. It makes the reader work a little bit harder to figure out what's going on, but for some reason, I think it's more satisfying.

This is the whole "show vs tell" argument - the less tell and the more show you do, the stronger the story will be - certainly in theory.

 

[The Big Peat]

Since someone mentioned Heinlein, I found Starship Troopers to be rather light on the exposition. I'm not sure whether others will agree with me mind and its been a while since I've read it, but that was my initial impression. And the reason that came across to me is that Heinlein hid a lot of the exposition away in small lines here and there that never really registered as such.

 

[Toby Frost]

A sci fi writer can get away with not including much exposition if they sticking close to the usual tropes - writing essentially unsurprising sci fi elements.

That's the danger - what you are writing ends up perilously close to an adventure story set in a cliched SF world, rather than an actual piece of science fiction that's "about" something (ironically, I'm usually the first person to object to the "Good SF is hard SF" argument that gets trotted out every so often). William Gibson is a good example: a friend of mine described Neuromancer as a great novel with a fifth of the words taken out at random, in that there's not quite enough exposition. I think the sequel, Count Zero, gets it just right.

Starship Troopers is an odd one, because I felt that there was a huge amount of exposition and very little real action, in that most of the book consisted of the hero being lectured by teachers, army officers and other mouthpieces for the author. I am very much in the minority, though.

But I suppose exposition depends on the circumstances. Is the scene in Aliens where Hicks shows Ripley how to operate a pulse rifle exposition? It probably is, but because it isn't overlong, and because it tells us about the characters, it is fine.

 

[The Big Peat]

Starship Troopers is an odd one, because I felt that there was a huge amount of exposition and very little real action, in that most of the book consisted of the hero being lectured by teachers, army officers and other mouthpieces for the author. I am very much in the minority, though.

But I suppose exposition depends on the circumstances.

Not just circumstances, but also perspective. Starship Troopers makes a fine example of that as, to me, its a book about the making of a soldier and as such the lectures *are* the action.

 

[Toby Frost]

That's an interesting view on it. I simply felt cheated by the book: it started with the promise of action and adventure and then became two hundred pages of spoon-fed lectures, none of which struck me as very well argued. Each to his own, but it put me off military SF in quite a big way. That said, the actual technology, and the setting, (in fact, most things other than the politics) were very sparsely described. I can understand that a squaddie wouldn't know much or say much about alien biology, but that would have been more interesting to my mind.

 

[MWagner]

The most common reason to use a lot of exposition is when the setting of the story is important, as in historical fiction and SF.

There are two reasons to keep exposition at minimum:

• Make the story fast-paced and focused on the immediate action.
• Invite the reader to fill in the blanks herself, either intellectually or subconsciously. This is a technique more often found in literary fiction.

How much exposition a reader wants or expects is largely a matter of taste. Some readers have no problem being left to infer background and other world elements that exist off-screen. Some find it very off-putting. That's why some readers adore Gene Wolfe, while others find him maddeningly allusive. Just be aware of what kind of book you're writing.

 

[edrick]

I prefer writers with sparse exposition like David Gemmell. Too much exposition bores me.I like to use my imagination to flesh out the worlds the characters live in.

 

[Brian G Turner]

I prefer writers with sparse exposition like David Gemmell. Too much exposition bores me.I like to use my imagination to flesh out the worlds the characters live in.

Hi @edrick and welcome to the chrons forums - and also good to see Gemmell get a mention.

 

[RX-79G]

Not just circumstances, but also perspective. Starship Troopers makes a fine example of that as, to me, its a book about the making of a soldier and as such the lectures *are* the action.

I don't think civics lecture or an explanation of 23rd century sexual norms can be seen as anything but exposition.

Is it possible that Heinlein is so much in our bones that we excuse his folksy lectures as something other than exposition? Maybe something about it being in mostly first person narration sneaks it through where third person would stand out?


As far as David Gemmell goes, does he write anything beside sword and sorcery fantasy, and would his books work if we weren't familiar with what S&S fantasy worlds are like?

 

[Montero]

That's an interesting view on it. I simply felt cheated by the book: it started with the promise of action and adventure and then became two hundred pages of spoon-fed lectures, none of which struck me as very well argued. Each to his own, but it put me off military SF in quite a big way.

You might try Tanya Huff's "Confederation" series - from PoV of experienced marine sergeant. Interesting collection of aliens - in the marines and out of it. (Have seen military sf fans complain it isn't military enough - not as much on weapons and tactics as say David Weber - so presumably less exposition .) Definitely plenty of action and adventure.

 

[LittleStar]

As @Abernovo mentioned above (ty!) I don't use much exposition at all. The main reason (and I think it's quite Abercrombie-ish, this) is I never move outside the characters and what they know. Now, sure, I could drop into an expert's frame of mind to get them to tell everyone what's happening, but that would be contrary to what I want to write - which is, essentially, stories where you could be living through it.

... ...

The downside is I also get comments like no one knows what my aliens look like, there isn't enough revealed for everything to be clear to the reader, that my characters do stupid things (well, yeah, they do - people do) that my sf doesn't feel like it normally does.

Firstly I didn't have trouble picturing IC's aliens (correctly or not is a different matter).



With regards to your first point, I agree with the concept and try, probably to varying degrees, to fit this method of exposition into my work. But done this way is the exposition still there, only masked in deep POV?

By which I mean, in more distant POV's one has the choice to slip into a narrator's paragraph/distant explanation. But deeply rooted explanations via character thoughts/dialougue/general narration, is this not just exposition by a different name (more palatable/ignorable form)?
And so is the more pertinent discussion how to disguise rather than how to avoid?





To the OP, I think the SFF genres are perhaps the hardest to avoid exposition, simply because the settings are so different. I've been thinking for a while f there is a way to achieve the same detail in SFF as other real world genres without relying on exposition methods (overt or otherwise) for huge swathes of story.

I can't recall what sparked my thinking, a tv programme I think, maybe about children living through the first world war and how horrible it was and e worst thing they could imagine. This can all be added into a story, SFF or otherwise, quite well. BT where most SFF fails is with e complete history that modern readers are aware of, namely that when these characters are twenty years older they are going to be drafted into WW2, and for me this prior information increases the impact and power of the story and characters tenfold.

I'm not sure there is a way to fit is into SFF novel set on different worlds/non human etc. certainly without relying on huge exposition and omniscient narrator ala Douglas Adams.


So in these SFF genres we have to choose between exposition in some form or risk completely losing the reader to confusion.

@RX-79G mentioned Gibson's newest work, I haven't read it but from this post and description I would absolutly not make it to the end because of the lack of connection to the world, evidently due to lack of exposistion. In scuh cases even blatant exposistion would be better than one for me, because at least I woud know what's going on. I don't want to struggle through a book for any reason

 

[The Big Peat]

Mm. No one wants a ton of exposition but its not a dirty word in and of itself. A bit here and there usually makes for a better story by and large.

I don't think civics lecture or an explanation of 23rd century sexual norms can be seen as anything but exposition.

Is it possible that Heinlein is so much in our bones that we excuse his folksy lectures as something other than exposition? Maybe something about it being in mostly first person narration sneaks it through where third person would stand out?

Possibly and almost certainly. There's nothing like liking an author or the book to make your mind skip past poor bits and I think 1P is very good at making such things seem part of the story.

That said, I've read nothing else by Heinlein. My take on Starship Troopers is solely on Starship Troopers.

As far as David Gemmell goes, does he write anything beside sword and sorcery fantasy, and would his books work if we weren't familiar with what S&S fantasy worlds are like?

Yes and yes. The second yes might turn to no if we weren't familiar with the commonly held view of history, but even then I doubt it. His books are about individuals facing individuals and such stories don't need to tell you a lot about the cultures of those individuals.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

@LittleStar - I think it depends on the character. (I'll pop into spoilers here for both Abendau and Inish Carraig)

Spoiler

With Abendau - If you take Kare, Lichio, or Sonly - they're introducing a whole world and their thoughts carry huge amounts of exposition about the world, its politics, its outlook. Each brings nuggets of information within dialogue and internal thoughts - and that's all exposition.

In Inish it was much harder because John knows nothing about the wider war and what he does know is unreliable at best. Henry knows more, but even he is limited. The only character I could have used for the wider context was the Colonel, but to use him would have ruined the mystery element of who'd done what with the virus. Which means things like the poster at the beginning outlining the Zelo's position was used, but it's still more of a confusing mess of what-is-going on than Abendau. For some, that works. For other readers, it's an annoyance. At least it's not boring....

 

[Martin Gill]

Have you read much William Gibson?

I thought of him as well. I tend to read Gibson books at least twice before I can work out what's actually going on - which sounds bad but I like that. Douglas Copeland works like this as well, but he's writing in modern day so he can get away without explaining what a Toyta Prius is.

 

[Aquilonian]

Personally I get bored if for instance I am not not told what a character looks like or what they're wearing. If they're outdoors I want to see the landscape. So I like exposition of that type. The kind I don't like is where 1st character tells 2nd character something that 2nd character must already know, simply in order to inform the eavesdropping reader. Conversations beginning "as you know..."

I think the ideal method is to catch the reader off-balance by having a character refer in passing to something that is normal in their world, but bizarre or shocking in ours, using the minimal amount of information, because that also slides into the character's own mindset and POV. For example there's a bit in Herodotus's Histories where he tells a long yarn that begins with a group of youths being taken to such-a-place "for castration." He clearly doesn't see this as anything remarkable, the story's all about some other stuff that happened to them. So the modern reader gets that jolt of realisation that this is a society in which men and boys are frequently castrated and no one (the narrator included) sees anything wrong with this.