Exposition

Good morning everyone! Today we're going to be talking about exposition. I'm sure you've all heard of the elements of a story in secondary school. Well I hope to elaborate on those elements in ways you haven't heard in school before to help you write a piece that will grab and keep your audience.

Exposition is the first element of a story. You could think of it as the introduction – introducing the story, characters, and what the general plot might be. Take a look at the first paragraph of this article and break it apart. Notice that the first thing I did was address my audience – you guys. Sometimes it's a good idea to do this, but other times, not so much. This is a nonfiction blog, which is considered informal writing. If you were writing a fiction story – a romance novel for example – you wouldn't address you're audience directly. The same goes for most persuasive writing. There is no need to address your audience directly in that case because it is simply not that important. The reader doesn't really care who is speaking, they just want to here what you have to say.

The next thing you'll notice about my first paragraph is that I took the time to tell you exactly what I was going to be talking about. Now, this works differently if you were writing a story, but I'll address that in a moment. In an article like this on, you'll want to let your reader know exactly what it is you want to talk about. Your reader isn't going to want to continue reading if they don't even know what they are reading. Be sure to make your point quickly and efficiently, not taking up too much of the readers time. In nonfiction writing, you need to remember to get to the point quickly whilst still writing in such a way that the reader doesn't get bored.

Remember that I said this is different for fictional writing. In a fiction story, the exposition still has some of its basic components, but it is entirely different in how it displays them. A good story will develop over time, slowly revealing more and more details to the reader. In some cases (such as mystery novels), the reader may not even know exactly what's going to happen until the very end. Because of this, you don't want to oversaturate your exposition with information. It should include an introduction of your main characters, as well as setting the general mood of the piece. If I'm reading a romance novel, I should be able to tell that it's a romance novel by the end of the exposition. It's worth noting that the exposition in a fiction work may be a anywhere from a few paragraphs to a few chapters in length. It all depends on how long it takes to say what you need to say in the most captivating way possible.

Below, I've included an example of a fiction and nonfiction exposition. I always like to include sources other than my own so you can see things in writing styles other than my own. Everyone writes differently. Notice how they utilize the elements I just spoke of.

NONFICTION:

“Information moves, or we move to it. Moving to it has rarely been popular and is growing unfashionable; nowadays we demand that the information come to us. This can be accomplished in three basic ways: moving physical media around, broadcasting radiation through space, and sending signals through wires. This article is about what will, for a short time anyway, be the biggest and best wire ever made.”

– “Mother Earth Mother Board” by Neal Stephenson. “http://www.wired.com/1996/12/ffglass/”

FICTION:

“FOR the most wild, yet most homely narrative which I am about to pen, I neither expect nor solicit belief. Mad indeed would I be to expect it, in a case where my very senses reject their own evidence. Yet, mad am I not -- and very surely do I not dream. But to-morrow I die, and to-day I would unburthen my soul. My immediate purpose is to place before the world, plainly, succinctly, and without comment, a series of mere household events. In their consequences, these events have terrified -- have tortured -- have destroyed me. Yet I will not attempt to expound them. To me, they have presented little but Horror -- to many they will seem less terrible than barroques. Hereafter, perhaps, some intellect may be found which will reduce my phantasm to the common-place -- some intellect more calm, more logical, and far less excitable than my own, which will perceive, in the circumstances I detail with awe, nothing more than an ordinary succession of very natural causes and effects.”
– “The Black Cat” by Edger Allen Poe. “http://poestories.com/read/blackcat”