How to disguise exposition

Every few months, I get invited to do a talk followed by a Q&A with a UK-based writers' group, so what follows are my notes that I've massaged into something of use for my readers. The main focus on this talk, was how to disguise exposition.

What is exposition? 

Any moment the story is paused so that a history lesson is given in some shape or form, it's a stage where you need to be very careful. It slows down your pace, and if there's too much of it, readers might put the book down. Remember also that we're living in an age where there are maximum distractions all around us all the time.

The big problem: 
I've lost count of how many first chapters I've read that had entire pages of back-story about a kingdom or a world. These days with Amazon's 'look inside' function, if you're not hooking readers from the start, Houston, we have a problem. Or I think of the SF writer I edited many years ago who had five pages of exposition discussing how the fusion drive on his space ship works. My eyes glazed over after the second paragraph, and I found myself skimming until he got back to the story. And of course there are the many times I've encountered chunks of info-dump right in the middle of an action-packed scene that threw me right out of the story.

My solutions:
So, how do you convey the vital information? 

1. Keep it relevant. Feed small snippets of info-bites in WHEN the details are important. Keep it short, for example, if there is a river that is prone to flooding, only bring this up when a character is about to cross the river. It's on a 'need to know' basis for your character and, by default, your readers. 
   
   
2. Dialogue is a great place, but be aware of falling into the trap of 'as you know, Bob' type dialogue that is clearly wedged in for readers' benefit. If it's information two characters both know, then find better ways to rehash it – perhaps characters have differing opinions that amount to an argument. And hey presto! You have not only a great opportunity for characterisation, but also for throwing in a bit of back story without making it yawn-worthy. Of course a prime example is when one character is a bit clueless, and the other is filling them in with something they don't already know. 
   
   
3. Nesting narratives. Sometimes we can have a story within a story – so look at how a classic children's fairy tale is told, there's a beat and a rhythm to the telling. Look at what sort of imagery you can use, how you can make the language beautiful – especially consider the African narrative tradition where a 'telly' way of sharing a story actually does work quite well. Do yourself a favour and go see how masters such as Sir Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman handle exposition. They make it feel effortless.
   
   
4. Show from context. If you want to show that a country has been suffering a great war, perhaps consider a chapter that starts with a character in a conflict area. Allow the contextual information, for instance, lack of supplies, bad weather, leaders who are out of touch with the common soldier, create a strong impression of what is happening. Turn it into a easter egg hunt of sorts. What sort of clues can you drop into your story that will gradually build up layers of meaning? You want to show that a building has suffered in a long-ago war? Maybe the bullet holes are still there, but they're furred with lichen and moss – this tells us the conflict happened a long time ago and no one's bothered to fix it.

Show, don't tell...
You've probably gone cross-eyed from having heard this, but there's some truth to it. Create a vivid setting, and readers will learn from what you feed them as things progress. Look at Bilbo in the Shire, as an example. Or Luke Skywalker the farm boy embarking on his journey. The world gradually unfolds and the writer creates a mystery that keeps dragging readers forward. Resist the temptation to throw everything and the kitchen sink at readers right at the start!

Your character...
Your characters will have opinions – not always the correct ones, but even two characters disagreeing on the same topic will not only give you good information about the characters, but will also show you more about the world. Two things happen – you build the world, but you also gain the opportunity to develop your characters. Think about why a story featuring a clueless character (farm boy, small children climbing into a wardrobe, a hobbit embarking on an adventure with a band of thieving dwarves) – we learn about the world through their fresh eyes. But even a character who is jaded, who has seen it all, can have Opinions that will also paint a better picture.

Choose the right events! 
Find events that are happening that are great opportunities to illustrate the mechanics of your world. There's a war brewing? What started the war? Was it a piece of land? Introduce a mystery that needs to be unpicked. 

Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi, you're my only hope. 

Show the characters gathering more information as their adventure progresses – you don't need to reveal everything in one fell swoop.

Offer contextual clues
Don't explain why people would have to be at a destination at a particular time. Just show them arriving, infer that this is something they do often – perhaps because they've got stuff stored there. Paint a vivid picture with your environment and your characters. Once again, don't explain. Show from how people interact with each other and their environment. 

For instance, instead of going on about the racism in a particular city, perhaps show a horrible man spitting at a beggar woman who belongs to a different culture. This tells us a lot not only about cultural tensions, but also long-standing issues. 

You want to show how healthcare in a community works? Have a scene that makes sense within the story where a character gets hurt while problem solving, and has to go to see a healer or doctor. 

A very fine line exists between too much and too little. And it takes a while to figure out the balance. Not all exposition is bad, IOW. But by the same measure you mustn't give it the steering wheel, so to speak.

If I have to think of novels that I struggled with, Frank Herbert's Dune springs immediately to mind. I stop/started it three times before I finally pushed through and finished. Herbert wades through so much internal monologues, back story – and the real problem is that even if you're going to write exposition, you need to be able to evoke images, tell a story that moves from A to Z. 

Another one that grated my gears was Laurell K Hamilton's habit of describing a laundry list of everything from the hair down to the shoes. Every. Time. A new character comes onto a page. It becomes so obvious after about a few chapters that I eye-rolled so much, and if it weren't for the fact that I was writing the review for the papers, I probably would have stoped reading after the first three chapters.

Handling exposition in your writing is very much a case of practise and awareness. Fellow author David Miles mentioned a great exercise where he advises writers to delete all the parts with exposition in an excerpt to see how it reads, then only to reinsert the bits of exposition needed to motivate what's being said. This is a good practice. Don't be afraid to cut words. You can always put them back later, where they offer better context. Or you could shape them so that they're more fascinating to read.

If in doubt, spend time reading attentively, and see how the classic authors out there handle exposition, then experiment with your own writing.