I'm going to post something that is unmitigated happiness for me.

[cypsiman2]

I actually love exposition. I love learning things, I love understanding things, I love when the story stops and takes the time to sit down and talk to me one on one so I can be brought into that world more fully. Are there bad ways to exposit? Sure, but exposition in and of itself is a good and useful tool that does certain things more efficiently and more clearly than other methods of conveying information in the narrative.

Comments

[sarajayechan]

Thank you. Exposition gets such a bum rap and it's so trendy for people to make fun of it, but it CAN be done well. Not every exposition bit is like that one chapter of the Babysitter's Club books that people skip.

[cypsiman2]

One day I'm going to write a story of an ordinary human kid being sent to wizard school or wherever and they just pay absolute rapturous attention to every lecture they go to and you hear every little detail and the main character processing the wonder that is learning and you will like it!

[sarajayechan]

Yay!

[dissonantbrie]

I was thinking about exposition the other day actually! I’m currently reading Kuang’s Babel and there is so much exposition. The characters are learning to be translators (and then some) so there is a ton of passages regarding linguistics, translation, and what people have had to say about it.

[cypsiman2]

Oh wow, that's quite some timing on that! Sounds like an interesting if challenging read!

[dissonantbrie]

It's so interesting. I will say Kuang does excellent work at making it manageable, though it's also intersecting with the violence of colonialism, so anyone not primed in any of it might stumble a bit.

It's actually a book that I think is largely exposition and summary and broken up by scenes, rather than vice versa. I'm about halfway through and the book and it's occasionally strange to come away from it and realize that, but that's also why it's 500 pages. Hahaha.