What is Exposition? Is it Different to 'Show, don't Tell'?

Is there a difference between exposition and telling?

Exposition is a literary device used to introduce background information about characters, settings, and events in a story. It provides necessary context for readers to understand the plot. I always think that exposition explains story, providing background and back-story, establishing the setting and introducing characters.  

"Show, don't tell" is a writing technique that encourages authors to convey emotions and actions through sensory details and character behaviour rather than through straightforward exposition. This method allows readers to experience the story more vividly. Key aspects include: sensory details: describing what characters see, hear, smell, taste, and feel; character actions; illustrating emotions through actions rather than stating them outright, and dialogue: Using conversations to reveal character traits and emotions without explicit explanations.

When used to poor effect, exposition is the ‘tell’ of show, don’t tell. Overused, or wrongly used, exposition can ravage a good story in the making. It becomes particularly redundant when the writer allows the actions to be held up by ‘telling’, rather than ‘showing’ ––that is, the creation of scenes that drop the reader into the character’s lives with action and dialogue. It can also take the shine away when it appears in dialogue or interior monologue, or through epistolary form, such as newspaper articles or emails. 

You can broadly (but not absolutely) think that; 

exposition = tell

scenes = show  

In a scene the character is present in every sense – literally – of the word – their five senses are operating there and then, and their sixth sense – the way they experience the world – is operating too. To show this happening pulls the reader in.

Treat exposition warily. Depending on ‘tell’ to lay out your story is almost always unwise. However, exposition isn’t all bad. Although readers mostly think about exposition as the boring chunks of narrative that open a story to tell them what’s already happened (especially in 19th C literature), it can also  describe, elucidate, clarify, interpret or summarise story, because;

1. There would be too many scenes (or too big a flashback) 
2. a link needs to be made (i.e. between space or time)
3. the author must convey information quickly (this is often when it’s useful in dialogue)
4. The narrator wants to guide readers through some story stages. 

Dramatise your exposition 

If it can be useful, how do we prevent exposition becoming dull? If the background information, such as the historical elements, or ‘world building elements,  is getting ‘told’ in chunks of exposition on the page, then take a breath, and rewrite, because such contextual stage-setting  is best ‘shown’ as the story builds. 

This is particularly true if you have needed to closely research information for your story.  Bear in the front of your mind that, although it was interesting to learn, and although it took you blood sweat and tears, it is not what the reader wants to know about…not via exposition, anyway. They long for character conflicts and the sparks that fly from relationships.

In my novel In the Moors, available on Kindle and paperback, I needed to explain what had happened to Sabbie's hens overnight. I could have just used exposition...the fox got in and killed most of the birds...but that's as dull as ditchwater, when I can use 'show':

    At the henhouse door I dropped my empty basket and cried out in raw distress. Slaughter lay at my feet. Saffron, the biggest of my hens, was gone, and Pettitgrain, my favourite, lay in the run, dead from a clean bite to the neck.

    The henhouse smelt of gore. Sickness swelled in my stomach, an expansion of loathing for the fox, no doubt now slumbering, replete. My brave cockerel, Cocky Bastard, who must have defended his harem to the last, lay on his side twitching steadily. I picked him up. His body was bloodied and broken. His eyes stared deep into mine. Quickly I broke his neck.                                                          The three remaining birds huddled in a corner making low, tense cluckings, as if they were discussing their traumatic night in hushed whispers... 

 

The info dump

The information dump is a phrase used colloquially by scriptwriters, but it’s also something that can be an issue for writers of novels and short stories. An info dump is a type of exposition, commonly a gambit used when the writer wants the reader to know something that the characters already know, but also used to overcome other information issues. I've covered this issue in this blogpost

Part of the redrafting process is to check for unnecessary exposition, and liven it up by transforming it into 'show'. Have a look at one of your pieces of work, to check if you can get rid of any and help your story shine!

Books to Read While it Snows

 

If novels set at holiday destinations are the best books to read beside a pool, then surely books describing terrible winters are ideal snowy weather companions...so long as you are sitting snug beside a roaring fire, wrapped in fleeces with a hot chocolate drink on the coffee table.

This is how Robert Macfarlane opens his book, The Old Ways...

Two days short of the winter solstice, the turn of the year's tide. All that cold day, the city and the countryside around felt halted, paused. Five degrees below freezing and the earth battened down. Clouds held snow that would not fall. Out in the suburbs the schools were closed, people homebound, the pavememts rinky and the roads black-iced. The sun ran a shallow arc across the sky. Then just before the dusk the snow came––dropping straight for five hours and settling at a stead inch an hour…At around eight o'clock the snow ceased. An hour later I went for a walk with a flask of whisky to keep me warm…

The Old Ways follows the ancient tracks that crisscross Britain, but maybe it's no coincidence that Macfarlane opens his wanderings in snow. It reminded me of how I love a snowy walk, and will get out as soon as the blizzard stops, bundled into scarf, gloves, hat and extra socks. Four years ago I wrote on this blog;

I whistled my dog into the field beside my garden. It is clothed in snow, and the glow from the moon coated the snowy field in an eerie yellow light. This is our morning ritual, to get out and walk around the 10 acre field together before even a cup of tea. As I crunched through the snow, a thought occurred to me. What's the connection between you, me and everyone else on the planet today?

And now, deep snow is back in West Wales, a place used to drifts, white-outs and gritting lorries, and I'm still walking around the fields and lanes with my dog. The red kites are wheeling in sky, riding the air currents as if for the sheer fun of it, and the sun is golden over the valley.  I can feel my cheeks redden as I walk, and I can't help remembering three novels that made me feel as frosty as I do now. 

 

The Land in Winter by Andrew Miller, was shortlisted for the 2025 Booker Prize, and I couldn't help drawing closer to the fire as I read the descriptions of the terrible winter of '62/'63. In a small West Country village, two young couples get to know each over the Christmas period. Rita and Bill have taken on a dairy farm and are trying to make a go of it. Eric the GP, and Irene, his pregnant wife don't think they have much in common but when Irene discovers Rita is also having a baby, they become friends.  Eric has a dark secret, and Rita has a past she'd like to keep secret. At a Boxing Day party, everyone becomes far too drunk, while outside the blizzard begins to rage.

The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey is set in 1920's Alaskan homestead. Jack and Mabel are childless, and drifting apart, under the weight of farmwork and loneliness. Following the pattern of a fairystory,  the couple build a

child out of snow, which strangely melts overnght. They glimpse a young, blonde-haired girl running through the trees, Faina. She hunts with a red fox at her side, surviving alone in the Alaskan wilderness. Jack and Mabel come to love her as their own daughter. But what they eventually learn about Faina will transform all of them.

Angela Carter also has a story called The Snow Child, the shortest tale in The Bloody Chamber. A Count sees snow on the ground while out for a ride with his wife, and wishes for a child ‘as white as snow', leading to an extremely bloody outcome. 

I first read Miss Smilla's Feeling For Snow by Peter Høeg in 1992.  A neighbour's neglected six-year-old boy dies in a tragic accident, and a peculiar intuition tells Miss Smilla it was murder. This was such an unusual, unpredictable and beautifully written crime fiction, set in the snowy winters of  Copenhagen, that I've never forgotten it.

Winter Solstice by Rosamunde Pilcher, has a warm theme of loss and the healing power of love, which will get you toasting your tootsies.

But if you want some that will really give you the chills, don't forget The Shining by Steven King. A classic snowy horror.