Meretia (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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writerstorm2009-11-24 02:51 am
meretia) wrote in writerstorm2009-11-24 02:51 am
How do I get this exposition across?
I cannot get my characters to drop exposition.
I'm working on a fantasy involving a parallel dimension inhabited by the personifications of character tropes and archetypes. I suppose you could think of them as being in the same general ballpark as the Endless from Neil Gaiman's "Sandman" comic. They appear as ordinary people (or most of them do, anyway), but they sort of influence their world based on the trope they represent--the Wise Woman's sphere of influence is a very serene place and others sort of naturally turn to her for advice, the Pirate Queen is a cut-throat corporate CEO surrounded by similarly ruthless business folk--if that makes sense. My main character, Fox, is a pretty ordinary woman who owns a bookstore and gives Tarot readings in a little college town in southwestern Ohio. She's got no reason to know any of this.
My problem is that none of my trope-world characters will tell her about it once she gets entangled in their problems. What's happened is that the Pirate Queen's gentleman friend, the Knight in Shining Armor, went missing shortly after Fox did a Tarot reading for him at her bookshop. The Pirate Queen doesn't believe that Fox had nothing to do with her and tells her basically that she'd better either give him back or find out what happened to him, or else. All the trope characters involved are too worried about their own problems to slow down and tell her what's what or don't care that she doesn't know.
The villain was supposed to show up to Fox’s house looking like a pair of normal people so that it could try to ferret out of her what she knows about all this. Then when it was inside it would sort of gradually lose track of its human form, drop some hints and minor explanations and a warning, and leave. But it basically swept in in its normal nightmare form, said, “heh, you really don’t have any idea what’s going here at all, do you? Now keep your damn mouth shut or else,” killed her pet lizard, and swept out. It told her its name when she asked, but it didn’t do any of the explaining I’d meant it to do.
There’s also a later scene where Fox goes to meet with the Pirate Queen (O’Malley), who would explain the whole thing. What has happened is that O’Malley has skipped that section of the conversation entirely. I’m still working on it, but pretty much the conversation has been a one-sided “Okay, so where is he? I don’t believe that you don’t know anything about this, quit playing stupid. Yeah, I don’t care what my assistant told you I’d do–What? The scary villain's involved? You’ve seen what it does, and it hates him more than it hates most people. Oh crap, this is bad. This is really bad. Get out there and do something about it.” from O’Malley. Even when I try to steer the conversation the way I want it to go by having Fox come right out and ask “whoa, wait, you’re dating a knight? What are you talking about?” O’Malley completely ignores the question.
There is one more character (or pair of characters, I’m still not exactly sure) Fox is going to be spending time with who might do a better job of explaining it to her, but his attitude is pretty much “look, lady, I don’t care, I know what’s going on here so just be quiet and let me lead.” Also Fox doesn’t really like or trust him very much. I have one last one who might tell her what's up because he likes feeling like he's smarter than other people, but I'm not positive he doesn't die before she comes on the scene.
Even aside from where it fits, having someone saying "why yes, I'm the Whatever, we're all this" seems really artificial to me. People don't talk about themselves like that. I just can't figure out how to get this idea across. Anyone else have any ideas?
I'm working on a fantasy involving a parallel dimension inhabited by the personifications of character tropes and archetypes. I suppose you could think of them as being in the same general ballpark as the Endless from Neil Gaiman's "Sandman" comic. They appear as ordinary people (or most of them do, anyway), but they sort of influence their world based on the trope they represent--the Wise Woman's sphere of influence is a very serene place and others sort of naturally turn to her for advice, the Pirate Queen is a cut-throat corporate CEO surrounded by similarly ruthless business folk--if that makes sense. My main character, Fox, is a pretty ordinary woman who owns a bookstore and gives Tarot readings in a little college town in southwestern Ohio. She's got no reason to know any of this.
My problem is that none of my trope-world characters will tell her about it once she gets entangled in their problems. What's happened is that the Pirate Queen's gentleman friend, the Knight in Shining Armor, went missing shortly after Fox did a Tarot reading for him at her bookshop. The Pirate Queen doesn't believe that Fox had nothing to do with her and tells her basically that she'd better either give him back or find out what happened to him, or else. All the trope characters involved are too worried about their own problems to slow down and tell her what's what or don't care that she doesn't know.
The villain was supposed to show up to Fox’s house looking like a pair of normal people so that it could try to ferret out of her what she knows about all this. Then when it was inside it would sort of gradually lose track of its human form, drop some hints and minor explanations and a warning, and leave. But it basically swept in in its normal nightmare form, said, “heh, you really don’t have any idea what’s going here at all, do you? Now keep your damn mouth shut or else,” killed her pet lizard, and swept out. It told her its name when she asked, but it didn’t do any of the explaining I’d meant it to do.
There’s also a later scene where Fox goes to meet with the Pirate Queen (O’Malley), who would explain the whole thing. What has happened is that O’Malley has skipped that section of the conversation entirely. I’m still working on it, but pretty much the conversation has been a one-sided “Okay, so where is he? I don’t believe that you don’t know anything about this, quit playing stupid. Yeah, I don’t care what my assistant told you I’d do–What? The scary villain's involved? You’ve seen what it does, and it hates him more than it hates most people. Oh crap, this is bad. This is really bad. Get out there and do something about it.” from O’Malley. Even when I try to steer the conversation the way I want it to go by having Fox come right out and ask “whoa, wait, you’re dating a knight? What are you talking about?” O’Malley completely ignores the question.
There is one more character (or pair of characters, I’m still not exactly sure) Fox is going to be spending time with who might do a better job of explaining it to her, but his attitude is pretty much “look, lady, I don’t care, I know what’s going on here so just be quiet and let me lead.” Also Fox doesn’t really like or trust him very much. I have one last one who might tell her what's up because he likes feeling like he's smarter than other people, but I'm not positive he doesn't die before she comes on the scene.
Even aside from where it fits, having someone saying "why yes, I'm the Whatever, we're all this" seems really artificial to me. People don't talk about themselves like that. I just can't figure out how to get this idea across. Anyone else have any ideas?
no subject
I agree with all the reasons given for not including an infodump so far, but I do also want to give another. If you do end up including the information scene, there's a good chance it won't be just artificial, but forced. Force something and there's one of two things going on: whatever you've forced into the story really doesn't belong in it or some part of the story is majorly flawed and needs some severe revisions. It's usually the former, in my experience.
If some of the information is really, really necessary, look into dispersing it rather than writing one long infodump for readers to slog through. Exposition can be done well, but nine times out of ten all it accomplishes is bogging your story down. By dispersing the information into much smaller chunks the story keeps moving, readers get a chance to figure it out on their own and you reduce the chance of said readers skimming or skipping parts of your novel significantly.
Chances are, you've already been doing the information-dispersing. All those scenes you describe here, they all have pieces of the puzzle that makes up your world. If you really, desperately need some information/explaining done, would having Fox think on all she's seen and showing her figuring it out on her own be an option? (With the added bonus that, written right, you'll reaffirm the reader's belief that Fox is a smart woman, capable of thinking on her own. Unless of course she isn't then that idea is useless, but hopefully you see what I mean. ^-^)