Concerning exposition – the bugaboo of all storytellers, especially scriptwriters
– someone I know floated this description:
“I would define exposition as anything that
the actors* and the audience can reasonably be assumed to already know. New information to all is not exposition. Information that the actors should already
know is the worst offense.” (*By
“actors,” I’m assuming he meant “characters.”)
Unfortunately, there’s a lot wrong with this definition. First, it’s a mistake to lump the
“characters” and the audience together.
In most plays, there are many things the characters know that the
audience does not. At the beginning of Hamlet, Hamlet is majorly bummed. He
knows why, but the audience does not (unless of course, the audience is
familiar with the play). Before
Shakespeare’s play begins, Hamlet’s much beloved dad dies and mother-dearest
quickly remarries Hamlet’s uncle. Enough
to give anyone a migraine, but, the point is, our boy Hamlet knows these things
– the backstory - but the audience does not ... that is until those influential
events are revealed through exposition.
Then there is the reverse situation, which is the
hallmark of suspense stories: the audience (or reader) knows something the main
character doesn’t. That causes us to
worry that the protagonist will fall victim to the apple we know to be poisoned,
the armed murderer we know lurks just beyond the squeaky door, etc.
“New information to all is not exposition,” the
definition continues. Au contraire: good exposition is exactly
that – new information, information new to the audience. Here’s my definition of exposition in plays: exposition
is the strategic revelation of information (backstory), usually through
dialogue, that the audience needs to know to understand what's going on. Exposition is an essential component of
storytelling. Meaning it’s far from a
bad thing in and of itself; how the revelations are handled is the issue. The challenge is to trot out the information
when it's relevant – "information as ammunition" – and not when the writer
feels it's convenient. The best
exposition is that which comes out when a character needs to bring out the information to achieve a purpose (at the same time providing
information that pays off later). Knowing
that Hamlet is in an emotionally turbulent state over his late father and
“o’erhasty” mother easily explains why he’s willing embark on a journey of
revenge that ends in a body count rivaling any action-adventure film.
Lastly, “Information the [characters] should
already know is the worst offense.” Here
our friend is onto something. When
characters in a story stand around telling each other information they both
already know just to bring the audience up to speed, you’ve got clunky
exposition. Think of it this way. It’s probably very rare that a person and his/her
significant other sit around recalling mundane events that they both
experienced together and, thus, both already know. However, when one is trying to best the other
– as in an argument – past events come rolling out as evidence for one side or
the other. In other words, the
information comes out in an organic and motivated way. And that’s the difference between good,
purposeful exposition and exposition that’s randomly placed and draws
yawns.
