Talk:Exposition (narrative)

Article Emphasis

Exposition is a respectable literary technique that is used in almost every work of fiction ever written. It seems odd that Wikipedia's only article on the subject (unless there's another I haven't found) concentrates on bad examples and gives the impression that exposition is a somewhat shady practice found only in hastily written horror movies and comic books. I recommend that this article be reorganized so that the opening paragraphs give a straightforward definition of the term and the derogatory expressions "infodumping" and "plot dumping" be moved later in the article, perhaps under the header "Problems with Exposition." I'll do it myself if I find the time, but if someone else wants to do it they have my blessing. Clampton 22:59, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree, and also don't have the time (though hopefully I'll remember to come back and reorganise it if no-one else has) sheridan 11:37, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

I made a stab at rewriting the beginning, but the emphasis in the rest of the article really needs to be changed. Apparently the problem is that the title of this article was originally "Plot dump," but someone moved it last April to "Exposition." At this point I think we should consider making "Plot dump" a separate article and expanding the article on "Exposition" with examples from Homer, the Greek dramatists, the Bible, Beowulf, Shakespeare, and modern fiction/drama, roughly in that order. Clampton 18:21, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Current form of the article goes wrong from the first sentence, which implies that exposition is limited to explaining events that occurred before the onset of action in the story. Exposition actually involves relating any information that the audience/reader needs to know in order to understand or appreciate the plot. We need examples not just from great literature, but examples of different ways of doing exposition (chorus, flashback, dialog, narration, etc) Capmango 20:29, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

The article as it stands is prone to mislead the reader. The reason for this is that it focuses on "fiction," but not on non-fiction. Since exposition is a "literary technique," it applies to all types of narrative, including "non-fiction" (and perhaps also all other types of communication, written or otherwise, but since the title includes "literary technique", that's as far as it should go.") God be with you. 96.56.14.26 (talk) 18:36, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Forbidden Planet

Is the Forbidden Planet really a good example of exposition? Rintrah 14:17, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

I should clarify my question: Can a movie as cheesy as the Forbidden Planet justifiably be cited as an example of "well done" exposition? You need only to watch the film once to see that it is cheesy. Rintrah 11:45, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

And if you watched the film twice, you might notice that it has a very clever story. I'm not the one who added that reference, but I agree with it in principle. Forbidden Planet has many dated elements, but the underlying plot is quite effective and uses exposition in a fairly classic manner, as a setup for the tragic fall of the Walter Pidgeon character. Clampton 15:47, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Forbidden Planet may appear cheesy to a modern audience; it isn't. The plot, and a lot of the structure including the exposition, is taken from Shakespeare's Tempest. Might be worth mentioning it in this article, as well as maybe giving examples of good exposition in the film instead of just saying it has some. Capmango 20:22, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

This is a bit too confusing switching through topics trying to tell the diffrence between plot device and plot dump

you try to find what is and isnt plot dump and can barely see the plot device --70.177.245.78 15:00, 10 November 2004 (UTC)

I think that "plot dump" is exposition as a plot device, but so poorly used that the reader begrudges the author for the heavy-handed exposition. 68.238.184.157 07:50, 15 December 2004 (UTC)

Holmes and Watson

Does every line spoken by Sherlock Holmes to Dr Watson count as plot dump?

examples of exposition and its absense

As far as parodies go, I think you should include the one from the GREAT MUPPET CAPER:

Miss Piggy: (after a long expository speech from Diana Rigg) Why are you telling me all this?

Rigg: It's plot exposition; it has to come somewhere!

On the other hand, allergic reactions to exposition can lead to very clumsy scenes. For example, in the movie "HARRY POTTER AND PRISONER OF AZKABAN", no explanation is given as to why Hermione knows a time-travel spell, even though it is crucial to unravelling the plot. The book's explanation was cut because it "slowed down the action", making the spell look like a deus ex machina. CharlesTheBold 03:25, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Unapologetic

Ok, regarding this sentence "...naked, unapologetic infodumps, with lengthy Idiot Lecture and Exposition sequences..". I couldn't find the word "Unapologetic" here -> http://dictionary.cambridge.org/results.asp?searchword=unapologetic&x=33&y=10 Could someone explain me why? Preferably someone whose mother language is english. Also, what's an "Idiot Lecture and Exposition"? Searching for that with Google only results in finding this wikipage. Also, it is the only time it is referred in this article. I suppose that capitalizing the first letters means it's some kind of Title or Expression, but I could not find anymore info about it. Any oppinions? ShinjiPG (talk) 13:36, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

"Plot dump" section lacking neutrality and not citing sources

The entire "plot dump" section looks like it's written from the subjective perspective of one author, based on his or her own opinion on what constitutes a good or bad exposition in a work of fiction.--87.164.75.182 (talk) 18:45, 7 March 2008 (UTC) Exposition is a form of explanation of something. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.227.32.125 (talk) 13:11, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Exposition

Exposition is a literary term Use in many ways

Merge from Incluing

I've done the merge - there didn't seem much to discuss for the merge itself, although people might want to reposition it now it's here, and of course edit it. Dougweller (talk) 16:17, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Incluing

I noted that any mention on this page of "incluing" disappeared 2 Dec 2012.

I suggest a request for deletion of Incluing is put up, or a new section on "incluing" is built up. As things stand right now, the content is (=could be viewed as) "sneakily deleted" (bypassing any rfd) CapnZapp (talk) 19:31, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

Might be an idea to include an explanation of what 'incluing' is, as that's the reason I came to this page (and I still don't know) sheridan (talk) 16:46, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

Plot dump vs. information dump

In the "Parodies of information dump" section, phrase "information dump" is used a whopping once, in the very last line of the section: "The final episode of the hit-series "LOST" is an information dump." [sic] It seems that this section is less about information dumping and more about random plot dumping. Should there be a distinction between "information dumping" and "plot dumping?"

I understand that plot is a type of information--you are informing the reader about what's going on in the story.

A plot dump has the capacity to be used seriously; or, it would if it wasn't cliched. There is no reason why an entire section should be--albeit indirectly--about parodies on plot dumping and not about how it can be used seriously, as well. I vote that, if we decide that info dumping and plot dumping are different, there should be a few examples of serious plot dumping underneath the examples of information dumping. Cinderlei (talk) 16:13, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps we shouldn't take it upon ourselves to decide anything and cite reliable sources to differentiate between plot and information dumping. ~QuasiAbstract {talk/contrib} 07:35, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Information dump: Examples include

The section "Information Dump" has at the end a list "Examples include:" which seems completely arbitary and lacking any sources. I think it should be removed. Master z0b (talk) 01:28, 24 January 2011 (UTC)tae ka!

Sexposition

Regarding the comment to the previous edit:

Sexposition: one newspaper story and a Sex.com blog isn't enough to make this worthwhile here, when there's a serious analysis of the neologism fine, but we shouldn't be helping to create it

Removing the section on "Sexposition" is fine, but not for the reasons given. We already have an article called Sexposition (which have survived a deletion request, so please don't pursue the arguments "not enough to make it worthwhile" or "we shouldn't be helping to create" since that discussion bring up several good sources that establishes the term's existance as well as the article's validity), so duplicating the content here is inappropriate. Mentioning the term is perfectly appropriate for this article, however - I simply linked to it in the see also section. CapnZapp (talk) 21:25, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

As you know, Bob

I think this is really unclear.

First off, the section should better prepare the reader that, yes, the terms are really "As you know, Bob" and "idiot lectures". An uninformed or casual reader will probably just assume the page was vandalized since the terms sounds so non-sensical.

Second, a question: isn't a criteria for As you know Bob exposition that the characters having the dialogue already know the things they tell each other? Put otherwise, do you really apply "AYKB" to all exposition-through-dialogue (like the article claims) or only when it doesn't make any sense for the characters to repeat stuff they already know?

CapnZapp (talk) 21:32, 23 March 2013 (UTC)

Hopefully I made it clearer now. --Spannerjam (talk) 10:11, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

Recent addition of banners

I do appreciate the quick feedback. However, the criticism remains unclear to me. Why does the article not "include all significant viewpoints"? Why may some or all of the listed sources not be reliable? I think the quote by Robert Kenen should be here but it would off course be even better if we had the quote from a renown author such as Stephen King. --Spannerjam 08:25, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

hurhur