Writing Resources from Fifteen Minutes of Fiction

Too Much Exposition

"So the movie starts with a big space battle. Lots of exploding space ships, lots of asteroid collisions. And hand to hand combat on board the ships."

"Light sabers?"

"Something like that. Only better than Star Wars."

"The audiences will eat it up!"

"Yes. They will. Then when the battle is over, we'll have a scene in the Senate."

"Another battle?"

"No. Just exposition."

"Exposition?"

"Yes. When you give background information that helps explain what is going on. It can be done with two characters talking to each other. Or a voice-over narrator explaining."

"I know what it is. It's just that we don't do exposition any more."

"What?"

"Yeah. It bores everybody. They sleep through it. And if they're going to sleep through it, it's a waste to film it."

"But the history and the politics behind the battle. It's very complex. We need to explain it!"

"Nonsense. Do you think the audience cares about background?"

"Well, I..."

"Who cares who is governor of this planet, or tetrarch of that planet? Why does it matter who is angry at who, or how they got the weapons to do something about it? The bombs explode just the same, and people bleed the same no matter what the politics are!"

"Yes, but..."

"No buts about it! We'd like to film your story, but we're going to have to do some editing. Out comes all the exposition! No more talky-talky! All boomy-boomy!"

"But I've got three thousand years' worth of background information on the intergalactic empire! We can't just cut it all out!"

"Hup! I said no more talky-talky! Time for some boomy-boomy!"

"But..." I held up my thousand page history of the intergalactic empire.

The producer snatched it from my hand. He tossed it into the trash can. And followed it with a Molotov cocktail.

As I ducked for cover, I finally realized what's been wrong with my life all these years.

Too much exposition. Not enough action sequences.

More writing by this author

Blogs on This Site