Way more engaging, right? It’s more clarifying, too. You are juxtaposing the darkness of the detective’s career with the innocence of the personal life he’s struggling to maintain. As he promises to be there to see his daughter twirl like a fairy at her dance recital, he examines the body position of a corpse. Or you could have him get a call from his daughter while he’s at a grisly crime scene. You could mention it in a scene where the detective is driving to work and thinking about his life. Let’s say you have to establish a detective’s strained relationship with the six-year-old daughter he only sees once a month. Juxtaposition is the act of placing two dissimilar things side-by-side to create a contrasting effect. Juxtaposition is a powerful technique for helping your reader connect with the emotional context of your story. This is called Chekhov’s Gun-the principle that any detail treated with importance must eventually contribute to the narrative. But if you make a big deal about their high school lacrosse career and the lacrosse ball they keep on their desk, be aware that the reader is going to expect those details to play a role in the story. In your character interviews, you may have determined that your antagonist loves lacrosse. Create an image and move on.Īlso bear in mind that all exposition should have a purpose in your story. But we don’t have to also show the Bonne Bell lip gloss and the inflatable furniture. It’s good to have specifics-to mention the JTT poster in the childhood bedroom instead of just saying the protagonist grew up in the 90s. The reader usually needs a lot less detail than we think. Was your internal response that every word is precious and if it weren’t precious you wouldn’t have put it there?Īlso me, too. Have you been told that one of your scenes has too much exposition? Yeah, me, too. Here are a few tips to help you pull that off. Exposition keeps up with the pace of the story when you reveal the right details at the moment when they are most relevant to the reader, using the most compelling language. How do you get around this if you have to explain some things in order for the story to make sense? Simply put, you’re doing too much explaining and not enough storytelling. If a beta reader tells you your pacing is a little slow, odds are good the problem is exposition. How to Keep Your Readers Awake During Exposition I’m about to explain how to pull that off, how to know which exposition strategies to use when, and what role genre plays in all of this. There are countless ways to make sure your exposition is just as juicy as the main action. If you’re struggling to communicate necessary background information without boring the reader out of their mind, don’t worry. Exposition illuminates the theme, guides your reader’s attention, and can even raise new questions that keep them turning pages past their bedtime. They create emotional context for your characters’ fears, desires, and choices. Background details give color and dimension to the world of your novel. But the fact is, exposition is part of the thrilling tale you’re spinning. Oh no, I have to explain that thing that happened last summer and it’s going to slow the pace of the whole story. The first step is to appreciate exposition.
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