Define exposition7/21/2023 ![]() ![]() Note: this article contains an excerpt from my #1 best-selling book The Write Structure, which is about the hidden structures behind bestselling and award-winning stories. In this article, I’ll define exposition, talk about how it fits into the dramatic structure, give examples of expositions from popular novels, plays, and films, and then give a few tips on how to use the exposition best in your writing. You can use these exposition worksheets in the classroom with students, or with home schooled children as well.How do good stories start? In the middle of the action? With a slow buildup to the action? What would you say really is the literary definition of exposition, and how can knowing it help you write better stories?Įxposition is a literary term that deals with how to start a story. This bundle contains 5 ready-to-use exposition worksheets that are perfect to test student knowledge and understanding of what exposition is and how it can be used. The exposition may only give you a few pieces of information at time. We are directly told that Scrooge is frugal and harsh in character.ĭickens writes very direct exposition, but the exposition with other authors may not be as direct or clear. From the first and second paragraph we understand more about Scrooge’s character through direct description. We understand that Marley is dead and gone, and that the firm still has business despite Marley’s death. We are able to understand more about Scrooge’s business and business partner from the first paragraph. Oh! But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge! A squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster.”ĭickens gives the reader a generous amount of information in these two paragraphs. Sometimes people new to the business called Scrooge Scrooge, and sometimes Marley, but he answered to both names. The firm was known as Scrooge and Marley. There it stood, years afterwards, above the warehouse door: Scrooge and Marley. “Scrooge never painted out Old Marley’s name. You would know both the location and the living conditions, or class, of the character about to be shown.ĭickens gives a good example of exposition in A Christmas Carol: ![]() Perhaps the film shows a dirty city street. From the opening scene, you know the location of the narrative. A film may open up over a landscape that slowly moves to the location of the protagonist or the opening of the action. Think about exposition in terms of film too. If you are inside a character’s’ minds, you may get exposition from their internal thoughts or their monologues, talking to themselves. Characters in dialogue can give you exposition and details you may need to understand the narrative. Looking at the grandma example, exposition does not have to strictly come from a narrator giving you boring description and narration. While your grandmother may be trying to tell you that your uncle moved back to town, any good listener or reader would be able to gather quick background information about your uncle to better understand the story and why your grandma is telling you this. Well, he has moved back to town.” This is a great example of exposition. He was the one that gave you that black bicycle at your thirteenth birthday party. For instance, you may hear your grandma say, “You remember your uncle, Thomas. We hear them over and over at family gatherings without identifying what they are. In fact, we use them almost every day when we are explaining things, events, or people to someone else. In a way, this may be giving the reader too much information at once, making the reader bored, or it may ruin details that come later in the narrative.Įxpositions, however, do not have to be long. Many writing critics frown upon exposition that is straightforward and gives you long passages of description about setting or character. Scholars believe there are good and bad ways to introduce and include exposition in the story. ![]() Exposition is a way of showing or telling you what you need to know about the narrative in order to better understand what is going on or what the author wants you take away from the experience. Download the Exposition Examples and WorksheetsĮxposition is a passage in a piece of literature or a work that is used to introduce elements of the narrative, such as background information, settings, events, and characters to help the reader progress through the novel.
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