posted
Ok, I'm working on my novel and have reached the first real section of exposition. In order to make the rest of the current chapter and the next one make sense I need to lay out about a page and half to two pages of exposition.
The scene is currently one of my main characters alone, reading through an encyclopedia/historical atlas. Essentially the idea is that he is refreshing his own knowledge of the subject that the reader needs to know.
It is reasonable to the character that he would need to refresh/relearn this subject at this time.
My main issue is that I think the whole, reading it from a text is rather overused as a device.
What does everyone else think about that? If it is reasonable to the character that he would read information out of a book should i just do it that way? Does anyone else feel that the whole book text reveals necessary exposition is overused?
Anyays, I'm going to sleep, perhaps i will wake to a good answer...
posted
If you're not comfortable with him reading it, then perhaps he could talk to somebody who knows about the subject?
Possibly your problem is that its too easy for him to just read it. Can you think of a way to work conflict into it, turn the entire thing into a proper scene (perhaps he knows somebody who knows about the subject, but they've had an argument in the past...?)
posted
Offhand, I'd say there's nothing wrong with the character using a book as a source of refreshing his memory. It seems pretty natural. However if you are considering taking an "exerpt" from the book and just slapping it into your novel as exposition, I'd advise against it, strongly. You can have the character consult the book and answer questions in his own mind from what he reads.
"Soandso knew that the aborigines of New Zealand used a particular plant for the healing of warts, but what was it? Ah, here it was! The leaves of the Mumbo-jumbo tree."
Well, you get the picture.
[This message has been edited by UnheardOf (edited May 12, 2004).]
posted
If I'm understanding you correctly, I'd say there's nothing wrong with the idea. Just be sure it seems natural. Longer exposition is better than rushed, unnatural exosition. The POV characterw ill probably intersperse his own attitudesand prejudices about the exposition as he calls it to mind.
Posts: 3567 | Registered: May 2003
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quote:However if you are considering taking an "exerpt" from the book and just slapping it into your novel as exposition, I'd advise against it, strongly.
I disagree with UnheardOf on this, at least to some extent.
Quoting from a "source document" can add to the apparent reality of your fictional world. If you can write an excerpt from an encyclopedia entry in encyclopedic style, giving the necessary information, I think that can work very well.
It is something that must be done well or not at all, though. But done well, it gives verisimilitude to your work.
posted
I like the solution to this used by Jasper Fforde and Sharon Lee and Steve Miller: fun little nuggets from invented books at the top of each chapter. The reader can choose not to look, and they don't pull out of the main part of the chapter's POV. It does mean you need something for every chapter header, and that the information imparted should be under a page, but it's still a neat method.
Posts: 253 | Registered: Jan 2004
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quote:Quoting from a "source document" can add to the apparent reality of your fictional world. If you can write an excerpt from an encyclopedia entry in encyclopedic style, giving the necessary information, I think that can work very well.
I agree with this, stipulating as it does that the writer is going to invent his own "exerpt." In which case he can manipulate it to his needs. I should have made it clear that I meant taking part of an article from an actual encyclopedic work. I advice against it because it is likely to have more information than the reader needs and, with a page and half or two, could be boring.
posted
I like Eric's idea. I wouldn't do a two page quote, that's a little overdone. You could do quote from several books or a book and intersperse it with the character's thoughts.
Baldon sat in the Veron's library with books stacked on the table in front of him. Something the merchant said tugged at his brain, 'The sky is green in the south. That's what the sailors say.' What did it mean? He took the top book and started reading.
"The Life and Times of Grizzly Glenn" Glenn was a sailor. Noone knew how he got the name Grizzly.
Baldon wondered who Noone was and how he knew Grizzly Glenn.
It is still an info dump, and people will see it for what it is. It is the author dumping info on the reader.
Can you work it into the text--does the reader have to know all this right then--period--or would it be better to work it in over the length of the story.
This type of insert of info is similar to the idea of two characters saying to each other--as you know--and then the info is dumped on the reader.
Even if you have the character go to the books and look up the answer it is still a "short cut" way to giving the reader the info--an easy out to weaving it through the text. How nice that the character can go to a book and "refresh" his memory while dumping the info on the reader. Too easy.
You might consider making small entries at the start of each chapter in reference style that tells something about the story to cover the info dump.
quote:This type of insert of info is similar to the idea of two characters saying to each other--as you know--and then the info is dumped on the reader.
This is not a problem because it's an info dump, it's a problem because it's unrealistic.
A scene in which two cosmologists explain the concept of black holes to each other would be ridiculous, because cosmologists already know what black holes are.
But if you make one of the two a cosmetologist, then you can realistically have one of the characters explain the intricacies of hair coloring to the other, because most cosmologists probably haven't got a clue about that subject. (Or you could have the cosmologist explain black holes to the cosmetologist. Either way works.)
Sometimes an info dump is necessary. When it is, you should try to do it in a way that enhances the believability of the story. If done properly, a source document can work.
The character I am dealing with is the equivalent of a Grad student or high level teaching assitant involved primarily in historical research. I felt at the time that him going to a 'encyclopedic' source would fit very well with the characters persona.
I do somewhat feel that using this book reading is a cop out.
The information really does need to be presented now, rather than throughout the story.
I was currently working it as if he was reading the passage and thinking about it rather than just printing in an excerpt from the book he is reading.
posted
I don't see any problem, and I don't think it's a cop-out--as long as the information is something the POV character doesn't know. If he already knows it, it won't work. If he once knew it but is refreshing his memory, then the only things you should include are the things he'd forgotten and is now being reminded of. So if the reader needs to know some of the basic information, and the topic is history in the POV characters area of specialty, it won't work. If you try it in that case, it'll come out just like Bob and Joe telling each other what they already know.
Posts: 932 | Registered: Jul 2001
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posted
Two pages is too much, in my opinion. Being a novel, people probably aren't reading your book to be informed--they're reading it to be entertained. If you're going to do it, make sure you either keep it short or give plenty of the POV's thoughts on the subject he's studying. Also keep in mind that if it has immediately apparent relevance to the story, you'll be able to get away with much more... if you're just telling the reader the information in preparation for future events, with no obvious importance at the moment of its conveyance, then they'll probably zone out (unless, of course, you make it really interesting via the thoughts and opinions of the POV).
[This message has been edited by AeroB1033 (edited May 13, 2004).]
posted
Could you work it out so that he goes to say check out the books he needs and comes across another character who is also studying this thing and they have a lively debate on the subject and include some action to break it up--say they get kicked out of the library because they are being so loud and must take the conversation outside--where they are accosted by panhandlers or some such that further illustrates the historical point?
It is a plot convention--no matter what people think. A cop out to getting the info into the story. An agent of editor is going to see it for what it is.
But what do I know. If you even think a little tiny bit that it is a cop out, then you need to listen to your inner voice and rethink it.
There are ways to get info into the story without reverting to such things. Try writing the next part without putting this info in and see what happens, you might be surprised what you get.
posted
Dialogue is often farrrrrrr more contrived than just telling us. "Well, as you know Bob, our country's been at war for five thousand years with Goobletash, and last year our city was nearly destroyed."
I tell you what, kinglear, I've heard of a lot worse ways than a character reflecting as he reads a book. I reflect about current events sometimes. Here's the trick....don't begin that way. If you've hooked us with some compelling bit of conflict and then have to have us be patient with you for two pages while you tell us what's up, I'm inclined to believe we'll go for it. (Of course, I'd have to seee if to know for sure> )
But let's be realistic here, two pages is not that much, and at some point almost every story is going to have to have a few paragraphs or a few pages telling the reader what the heck isgoing on.
I've done it before with a woman pouring over a book....now that book was her own personal journal and not an encyclopedia, and she was reflecting on her own life, but I thiink the principle is the same.
I've done it with a girl in temple who's supposed to be paying attention but instead is thinking about all her own problems, while in the meantime filling the reader in on the world's religious practices.
I've done it through dialogue, but in this case you have to inersperse dialogue with observations fromt he viewpoint character's head, like this:
"But Bob, last time we did that the Goobletash bombed Micropalina."
"But this time will be different," Bob said. The war with Goobletash was five thousand years old, and if it did not end soon their people would surely die.
....
In this manner, you can add a sentence or two of exposition in between dialogue segments, but be careful never to start having the characters tell one another what they already know unless there's a mighty good reason for it. Everything else can be in the mind of the POV character.
I've also told exposition in just a paragraph of telling it. This works out best in short stories where there is not much than needs to be said. I get into the conflict, and down on the second page somewhere, BOOM, then story the rest of the time.
In novels, I sometimes do POV character switches to help with expoosition. So in chapter 1 you get some exposition. In chapter 2, I start to tell the story from the POV of the other side of the conflict, and to ease the transition, I have a couple paragraphs of lead-in, in which the POV character is doing something minor like walking towards the place where he will inevitably meet Joe again, where they had that awful fight yesterday. Didn't he understand....You can't let something like this go on for too long, but if you've got a few paragraphs or as much as a page, readers will stick with you for this kind of exposition because it's interesting. It's like, oh really? We were all rooting for Joe but there's another POV?
I'm not averse to an actual other-world encyclopedia entry. They did this in Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy...of course, they were highgly amusing.
Okay, forgive me for just skimming through this, but you have all lost sight of the issue. I have come from the domain of the Black Rabbit himself to set you all straight.
Exposition should be handled as part of the narration of the story. Meaning, the information of the exposition should move the story forwards.
That is the key difference, and probably what SR is trying to get at. If you have a POV character reading an encyclopedic history of something or other, then give him a)a character reason for reading the encyclopedia and b) an action to perform while reading the encyclopedia.
You say that it is reasonable that the character "would need to refresh/relearn this subject at this time." I'm not sure what you mean by that. If you mean he needs this information, and hitting the books is the way he's going to get it, then fine, you have a character reason for him to read. But if you simply mean that he plausibly wouldn't remember the exact information...well, that doesn't quite cut it.
As to b), his reading should directly advance the plot somehow. For instance, in a police drama, the conversation with the hooker gives the detective a new angle on who might be the killer. Because of that conversation, he looks for blood in the engine compartment of the car, not the glovebox. Hey presto! Now he knows that the severed hand was nestled next to the battery and thus the driver did it, not the butler.
Okay, a bit obscure. But the plot needs to develop as your character reads. When he's reading along, he notes that Maldon was a signatory to the infamous Kortadan decree and was never apprehended, simply disappearing in the aftermath. "Hmmm...I wonder what happened to him...could he be connected to this Neo Kortadan movment?" Our fine hero rubs his massive chin, deep in thought "Of course, that would explain where they got all those Tazian scrolls! The threat is greater than I suspected."
In other words, something important should happen to the character because of what he is reading.
The same thing applies to reading a book as to any action in your story. The character should have a character reason for doing it and the action should have important plot implications.
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"Of course, that would explain where they got all those Tazian scrolls! The threat is greater than I suspected."
