Phillip Williams - Author
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Here's the story. I sent off my first three chapters to my small team of beta readers and got some feedback. Great dialogue, natural flow, easy to follow. Great! But... not enough exposition. So, I needed to learn a bit more about how to strengthen this. So I took to the internet and I did what I do best... you probably guessed it... research. Now the first question for those who don't already know: What is meant by the term 'exposition'? The Oxford dictionary defines this as: 'A comprehensive description and explanation of an idea or theory.' In my mind when I started to write the book, I would split it into three parts, similarly to a screenplay (even though there are articles out there opposing the three-act structure... which I don't understand why). In my head: Act I would be the set-up; Act II would be the action; and Act III would be the finale. Thus, my understanding was that my exposition would be the overarching meaning of Act I. I was incorrect. Also, the Oxford definition of exposition is not what we are looking at when it comes to writing. Fundamentally yes... practically... not so much. So let's get into it. Exposition is... You can look at exposition in a couple of ways, in my opinion. Firstly, you can see it in the way that my beta readers did whereby you are simply incorporating more backstory to add character depth. Simple, right? So how do you go about it? To add more character depth and incorporate more back story you need to entwine this within the characters thoughts or dialogue. In my novel, my main character (MC) had a brief memory and stated that it was 'probably the last happy memory she had of her Mother'. I left it there, and later on when her Father says to her 'we don't have to tell your Mother about it' and my MC has to stop herself from saying 'don't worry, you're not the only one keeping secrets', I didn't delve into it. My thought process was that it would result in there being some intrigue. I was wrong, it was too vague and I need to add more. There is a backstory that my MC knows, that other characters don't. The point is... you are in your MC's head! You can tell the readers what the MC knows and still keep it from the other characters. So, I will be doing that... pronto! And then it hit me... there is a second way to strengthen exposition! The story is starting off too slowly. It's supposed to be a crime thriller/drama and so far, the set up is eating up all of the lovely, lovely drama! This meant re-writing Chapter 1 (which luckily I had already written for my first draft, and then scrapped) to not only add backstory to the character... but going back to the Oxford definition, I could add a comprehensive description and explanation of an idea or theory. Transposing a couple of the meanings: Comprehensive description/explanation = a chapter Idea/Theory = the theme of the novel A chapter that allows me to add drama, in context about something that happens in the story. A chapter which predetermines the pace of the book. Something that says to the reader: Hey, this is what you can expect once all of the set up and character introductions are out of the way. Obviously I'm not going to tell you here... you have to wait for the book... or become a beta-reader/critique partner for me. It's bloody exciting though! A practical example of this, too... Now that story did pretty well...
I hope you found this useful and something you can adapt to your own stories. Let me know what you think! Thanks for reading. Until next time...
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Hi, I'm Phil Williams. Welcome to my blog.
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