Martin is able to share insights into Catelyn personally, while also expanding on his worldbuilding, giving insight into religious norms and practices in a natural way. The Tullys kept a godswood, as all the great houses did, but it was only a place to walk or read or lie in the sun. Worship was a septon with a censer, the smell of incense, a seven-sided crystal alive with light, voices raised in song. Her gods had names, and their faces were as familiar as the faces of her parents. She was of the Faith, like her father and grandfather and his father before him. In this passage, Martin uses a brief narrative digression to establish both Catelyn Stark’s backstory and her religious piety.Ĭatelyn had been anointed with the seven oils and named in the rainbow of light that filled the sept of Riverrun. Exposition example: A Game of Thrones, George R. Let’s look at a few examples of narrative exposition to see how this can be achieved. Great authors are usually sparing with this technique, only breaking from the action to fill in the most essential details. As Kurt Vonnegut once said: “Every sentence must do one of two things: reveal character or advance the action.” This technique should be used delicately: a reader doesn’t need to know every mundane detail about a character’s life, and frequently breaking from the plot to insert backstory can make a story lose tension. Another expository tool at writers’ disposal is the use of narrative digressions to flesh out background and fill in gaps in the reader’s knowledge. Narrative digressions to fill in important detailsĮxposition doesn’t need to come from characters themselves. Here, he establishes the tense relationship between Hamlet and his uncle, and introduces one of their key conflicts: Claudius feels Hamlet is too upset over the death of his father, while Hamlet finds Claudius cruel. Not so, my lord I am too much i' the sun. How is it that the clouds still hang on you? A little more than kin, and less than kind.
Take thy fair hour, Laertes time be thine,Īnd thy best graces spend it at thy will! In this excerpt, we get an example of his efficiency in expositing dynamics and backstory through dialogue. If anyone knows good dialogue, surely it’s Shakespeare. Rather than having us witness the action, Golding establishes the crash and setting through dialogue, as we see the boys discuss what has happened, and question what will happen next. "All them other kids," the fat boy went on. The fair boy was peering at the reef through screwed-up eyes. But he wasn't in the passenger cabin, he was up in front." Perhaps there aren't any grownups anywhere." We begin Lord of the Flies in medias res, with a group of boys having already crash landed on an uninhabited island. Exposition example: Lord of the Flies, William Golding (Image: Columbia Pictures) Morris immediately that he is to take possession before Michaelmas, and some of his servants are to be in the house by the end of next week.”īy eavesdropping on this short exchange, we’re able to both gain an understanding of the relationship between the Bennets (her being the gossip, him being the long-suffering listener), and learn that an inciting incident has disrupted their life’s status quo: the arrival of a wealthy single man into the village. Long says that Netherfield is taken by a young man of large fortune from the north of England that he came down on Monday in a chaise and four to see the place, and was so much delighted with it, that he agreed with Mr. “You want to tell me, and I have no objection to hearing it.” “Do you not want to know who has taken it?” cried his wife impatiently. Long has just been here, and she told me all about it.”
Bennet,” said his lady to him one day, “have you heard that Netherfield Park is let at last?” In the opening of Pride and Prejudice, Austen provides a masterclass in elegant exposition, establishing character relationships and setting up the novel’s action in one conversation. Exposition example: Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
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