Unconnected Exposition

[ColGray]

I've been listening to The Book Eaters (by Sunyi Dean) and she begins each chapter with a quote from an in-universe book, some of which are known by the protagonist (fairy tales) and some are not (private journal entries, secret history books, etc.)

The ones where the protag doesn't know the book kind of bug me. It feels like exposition cheating -- Here's something that's going to matter to this chapter and I'm introducing it without context or introduction! Some of them raise the stakes or give insight into a character. Some of them just worldbuild. What are other's thoughts on them?

Related (in my brain, if maybe not in reality) are transcript excerpts in books. American Prometheus/Oppenheimer (the movie) used them to great effect and they strip down a scene or interaction to pure dialogue. Characters A and B are in a white room, devices are recording and Character A wants this, B wants this other thing, go.

Transcripts can lack context and be an exposition cheat, but, i like this method and I wonder why I'm okay with this and not pre-chapter quotes.

 

[Wayne Mack]

I agree with this sentiment. It is fairly common to use introductory quotes in fantasy and science fiction stories, it is not one of my preferences. The vast majority of the time, I don't feel these lead-ins add anything to the story and actually serve to break the story telling flow. I am okay with using transcripts, news reports, etc. in the story as long as they are introduced as part of the flow to inform a primary character of something. Sometimes these eliminate the need for a PoV jump and the introduction of a one-off PoV character.

 

[ColGray]

Yeah, i think that's it exactly. It breaks flow and feels heavy handed -- YOU NEED TO KNOW THIS FOR THIS CHAPTER.

News reports are another great example -- Lindsay Ellis uses them to great (expository) effect in Axiom's End

 

[msstice]

I will default to my rather unhelpful position of "If it works, it works."

If it is boring to read then it doesn't matter if it is exposition, dialog or kung fu fighting, it's not working. Background information presented in an interesting way (say the Pensieve of HP, or Gandalf telling a tale or Obi Wan Kenobi telling the truth from a certain point of view) will work.

I think when I started out writing as a teenager I did a lot of exposition. My current understanding is that this is actual the stage of me telling the story to myself. When I understand the story I feel I can covey the same information in a more exciting way through actual story telling.

For example, I started a chapter, and I had a version that went "The guards are stupid, indisciplined, corrupt and they extort the village folk." In this version this was effectively the internal monologue of my MC. In the next version I thought I would try showing them doing all this stuff while the MC waits to ambush them. In the current version I did it even more cheaply: I had a clever evil guard and a dumb evil guard discussing what they would do to the village folk, and how to keep the loot hidden from their superiors, and how to justify being so evil.

I was very happy with this version because it was fun to write the dialog and it conveyed the backstory with a lot more nuance and in the flow of the main story.

 

[Swank]

This is used throughout the Dune books. It is good when done well.

Anything done well is good. No point in complaining about a category of thing when the problem is not the category but the thing itself.

 

[sknox]

It goes back at least as far as John Dos Passos, who used it to great effect in his marvelous USA trilogy. In very much the same tradition, John Brunner used it in Stand on Zanzibar. And of course Asimov with Foundation.

Rather than declare the technique irritating, I tend to blame the author.

 

[psychotick]

Hi,

Actually I like the technique - where it's done well and adds something to the story. And on a related note, I like using chapter titles that give the readers a snippet - again if it's done well. I'd like to use it myself - except that I can't seem to come up with something cutesy / relevant / teasing for fifty or sixty chapters.

Cheers, Greg.