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Dialogue versus exposition

What is a good way to distiguish good dialogue from exposition?
– Josh Hatfield

Dialogue:

• FRANK
• Let’s say we try to keep the dysfunction indoors, huh?

Exposition:

• O’MALLEY
• Thompson was a down-on-his-luck bookie who thought he could swindle Ackland out of the ticket profits. He wasn’t counting on Rickman having the same idea.

Always ask yourself: Would the character actually say this, or is he only saying it because you need the audience to know some fact or detail? If the answer is the latter, you’re writing exposition and not dialogue.

That’s not good.

At its worst, you risk “M Syndrome,” named for the James Bond boss whose sole function seems to be telling 007 all the backstory so he knows who to shoot. (This was parodied in the Austin Powers movies by Michael York’s character, Basil Exposition.)

Honestly, there are times when you really do need to have a character say something that’s purely plot. In certain genres, like police procedurals, exposition is pretty much par for the course. But to the degree possible, try to avoid situations where characters are spouting information.

Wherever possible:

1. Show the information, rather than having a character say it.
2. Try to follow a natural line of thought: A to B to C.
3. Simplify. The reader may not need to know everything.
4. Keep your hero active in learning the information, rather than passively listening.
5. Balance natural speech patterns with efficiency. People rarely say things as concisely as they could.

Avoiding exposition is hard, especially in plot-dependent stories. But it’s one of the first things a reader notices, so spend the time to deal with it.

4 Responses to “Dialogue versus exposition”

1. Nathan says:
   December 17th, 2004 at 11:02 am
   1. Make sure that the audience isn’t the only one in need of the exposition, i.e., the person being told needs to hear it. Nothing sends up the “Chunky Exposition” flag faster than having Bob tell Dave something that Dave already knows simply so the audience can hear Bob say it. (”As you know, Dave…”)
2. Dave says:
   December 18th, 2004 at 4:59 pm

   Good point, but I thought his name was Morris the Explainer.

   1. Put the script away for a few weeks, then read only the dialogue. The expositional dialogue will now scream at you to kill it.
3. Paul Couvela says:
   January 25th, 2005 at 5:40 am
   1. Keep the audience in the dark. Seriously. I’ve seen far too many films where after ten minutes, I know everything and after eleven minutes, I’m bored. I prefer to be airlifted into alien territory without a map and left to figure out for myself just what the hell’s going on around here.
4. Alex Epstein says:
   February 25th, 2005 at 5:59 pm

   No, no no. It’s Moishe the Explainer.

   The best way to turn expo into dialog, stat, is to put two characters into an argument. As they argue about the facts, you get the facts out there.

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