It summarizes the pieces of your characters’ lives that don’t impact the story, reveal something important about those characters, or move the plot forward.Įxposition can also be used to deliver information clearly and directly.
#Exposition in a story movie
Instead, summarize these events through exposition like a movie montage.Įxposition allows you to state time has passed instead of showing that time passing. They also don’t want a step-by-step account of how your character went from a novice to an expert in some skill. Your readers don’t want to see every moment of your character’s journey to work or through the forest. It skips the boring bits where nothing happens and speeds up your pace. How boring would stories, books, and movies be if we had to watch every hour of every day in which the story took place? Exposition lines like “Three days later, Kara returned to school” keep your story moving and readers engaged.Įxposition is a great tool to get your characters and readers from A to B quickly. One crucial place exposition should be used is to reveal the passage of time. Exposition used in this way should be quick, brief, and relevant to the current situation.
Using exposition to reveal backstory avoids bogging your story down with unnecessary scenes or killing your pace to stop and spend multiple paragraphs on irrelevant details from your character’s past. The reader doesn’t need the details of the character’s past all they need is to understand why Jeb wasn’t wearing a belt.
#Exposition in a story full
Sometimes all your story needs is one line of exposition backstory, instead of a full flashback showing how your character was abused as a child. He still sported a few scars from his dad’s belt buckle and refused to wear the deadly strips of fake leather.
If you have a scene where a character’s pants fall down in front of the person he’s trying to impress, you might need a line of backstory to explain why he’s not wearing a belt like:Īs Jeb walked up the stairs with the heavy box, his pants slowly slipped from his hips. You reader only cares about the backstory that is pertinent to this moment in your current story. Your reader doesn’t care where your main character went to catch frogs when they were four. Many authors I work with try to cram as much backstory into their piece as possible because they did character sketches and histories and think those should be read. It allows a deeper connection between the reader and the character.One of the areas exposition can be particularly impactful is when revealing backstory. This exposition is important to include so that the reader is able to understand the characters before they encounter a major struggle they must overcome in the story. Summaryĭefine exposition: The exposition of a story is the beginning of the plot where the reader learns the characters and the setting of the story. This text outlines the characters and the situation in which they currently find themselves. The Star Wars film franchise makes use of exposition through the scrolling text that begins each movie. Not all movies utilize visual exposition, however. The audience learns that Marlin lost his wife before Nemo was born and this leads him to be a protective father over his only child.īy including the exposition, this allows the viewer to understand the character of Marlin and follow him through his journey of allowing his son to experience life. In Disney-Pixar’s Finding Nemo, the exposition is the opening scene where the audience is introduced to the main characters Marlin and Nemo. In movies, unlike literature, the main characters and setting will be shown rather than explained through a narrator because they have actors and scenery to aid in the telling of stories. This allows the reader to understand his perspective before he encounters the central conflict in the plot. Through the introduction of Christopher, we learn that he has autism and views the world with a unique mindset. The setting is his home in England where he lives with his father. In Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, the reader is introduced to the main character and narrator, Christopher, as he discovers the slain body of his neighbor’s dog. Additionally, we learn why Montresor chooses carnival for his revenge: his foe will likely be caught off guard as well as full of wine during this time of celebration. This information is important to the story because it sets up the characters and background information of the story.
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