Wednesday's Writer's Tip - A bit about exposition

Exposition is all about giving information. Often this involves backstory. You need to know how much to tell and how. Exposition is also used for describing people and places. Another place where you need to know how much to tell and how. In the beginning of a story, these are things that need to be there. The question is How much and when.

I begin with a rough draft that includes anything I can think of. This is the draft only a writer can love. Then I have to sit down and ask myself some questions. One of them is how can I put the information in so it doesn't seem to be paragraphs and paragraphs of material that will put the reader to sleep.

With the backstory, I ask myself questions. Is this material something I as the writer need to know? Does the reader need to know it at this point? If the reader needs to know how can I slip it into the action? Can I use dialogue. inner thoughts or a flash memory" Not a long memory that takes the reader way from the story. Most of the time I discover that all this backstory is something I need to know but the reader doesn't need to receive a blast of information at this time so I save it for later revelation.

The same goes for descriptions. What I look at here is what is the really important part of the scenery, something to hone in on during the action of the story. The same goes for character description. The glare in his blue eyes caused her to tremble is better than He had icy blue eyes. This goes for every bit of description. Light shone through the stained glass windows or Bright sunlight cast myriad colors on the cream walls. She was reminded of a kaleidoscope.

So use exposition wisely and get the facts needed across during the action and using only what's absolutely necessary during the beginning scenes of a story.

meandering on Monday with Janet Lane Walters

Today's meander begins with a question. How much backstory does a reader need to know and when and how should this backstory be given? Been reading some contest entries recently and found the greatest problem with some, both published and unpublished was the amount of backstory given in the opening few pages. This rather annoyed me and made me want to skip those pages. Not a good idea when a contest is being judges. Often the offered backstory is something the writer needs to know. The blocks of  paragraphs, sometimes interesting to read, and other times not, are usually about events the writer needs to know to develop both the characters and the plots. But to find line after line regaling the reader with what happened to the hero or heroine in the past slows the pace of the story, can confuse the reader.

How these paragraphs of backstory are done can vary. Sometimes the writer uses a prologue. This can be effective if kept short and really have had an effect on the character. Otherwise the reader may get the wrong idea of what the story is really about. Then there are the stories that start out with a bang of a paragraph or two of action and then stop to give what happened to the hero or heroine in the past and this goes on for pages.

Some beginnings give a bit of backstory that is just enough. A clue, a hint of what happened in the character's past to make them what they are today.

How about you? Do lengthy backstories in the beginning of the book annoy you?

My own writing continues with work on The Goddesses or Er and on finishing the corrections on Lines of Fire so I can submit it to one of my publishers.

Meandering on Monday with Janet Lane Walters

They say it's all in a name. For me it's all in a title. I was totally stumped with my current WIP because I did't like the title. The title was appropriate forty years ago when I began the book and sent it out again and again. The final straw was when a publisher of the type of book it was decided to stop publishing fiction. Then I was searching through my old files sort of clearing things out and found the mss on carbon paper. The title had nothing to do with where my head is not in writing but the elements of a good story were there. As I pondered what to do, I saw elements I had missed and knew what I wanted to do. Thus were born the Goddesses of Er, Sola, Luna and Erda. I've used the concept of goddesses before. Once the goddesses took root in my thoughts and the new title was in place, I was able to see what stayed and what had to go. Some to the to go things were archiac stules of writing and back story in the first 25 pages. In fact a lot of those things took up pages and pages. Leaving enough backftory to set up the world was interesting. Setting a world when it's one of fantasy or paranormal is difficult. The reader had to believe in the world you're created but not be so bogged down in a history lesson that they forget what they're doing. So now I can continue to fashion this story.

A real problem I'm having these days is with my reading habits. I've spent nearly all my gift cards and so must choose what I want to read on my Kindle carefully. Can't wait for Christmas. On one of my loops we've been talking about pricing ebooks. The conference I went to and a speaker I listened to said some interesting things about pricing. He felt 2.99 was too low and books should be above 4 dollars and yet not above eight. I seldom even buy one that's above that price. There are books I would buy since they belong to favorite authors but I'm not about to pay 9.99 or more for them. I'll wait. If they don't come down I'll have missed a book and they will have missed a sale. I'm sure they don't care.

So enough wandering for today and I'll get back to work plugging in corrections and working on the new story.