“Showing” through Exposition: A Study
By Kathryn Craft | September 12, 2019 |
photo adapted / Horia Varlan
When writing teachers say “show, don’t tell,” they typically suggest doing so through dialogue, action, and sense imagery. Exposition, on the other hand—the writing that contextualizes the more active aspects of scene, and is often thought of as mere connective tissue—is often pointed to as “telling.” After all, its etymology is from the Latin exponere, which means “explain.”
If a reader wanted to be lectured, he’d probably choose nonfiction. Fiction fans love to add things up in their own minds. They rarely want their stories explained.
But exponere can also mean “expose.” When a woman exposes her body to a lover, do you suspect there’ll be a whole lot of explaining going on? [Except in Elizabeth Gilbert’s City of Girls, that is, where such “explaining” is used to comic effect. In one scene, Dr. Kellogg, a man experienced with the deflowering of virgins, is speaking to the young supplicant (our POV character) lying naked on his bed. “Forgive me if my hands are cold, Vivian, but I’m going to begin touching you now.” She finally kisses him to make him shut up. Ha!]
Clearly, exposition can either show or tell, or pull off both, which does not make things clear at all for the studious writer.
Take the opening of A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, often misremembered as “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” By applying his value judgment, the author is telling you about the times.
But the actual first sentence is:
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way—in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.
Within the context of the whole, the best of times/worst of times paradox—that on its own had felt like telling—becomes the first of many paradoxes, whose accumulation “shows” that only superlatives can define the period.
But stories have changed since 1859. Who knows if today’s publishers would let a writer like Dickens through their gates? So let’s look at a New York Times Notable Book that was published in 2001: How to be Good by Nick Hornby. The novel starts with the following first-person observation. Is it telling, or showing?
I am in a car park in Leeds when I tell my husband I don’t want to be married to him anymore. David isn’t even in the car park with me. He’s at home, looking after the kids, and I have only called him to remind him that he should write a note for Molly’s teacher. The other bit just sort of…slips out. This is a mistake, obviously. Even though I am, apparently, and to my immense surprise, the kind of person who tells her husband that she doesn’t want to be married to him anymore, I really didn’t think that I was the kind of person to say so in a car park, on a mobile telephone. That kind of self-assessment will now have to be revised, clearly. I can describe myself as the kind of person who doesn’t forget names, for example, because I have remembered names thousands of time and forgotten them only once or twice. But for the majority of people, marriage-ending conversations happen only once, if at all. If you choose to conduct yours on a mobile phone, in a Leeds car park, then you cannot really claim that it is unrepresentative, in the same way that Lee Harvey Oswald couldn’t really claim that shooting presidents wasn’t like him at all. Sometimes we have to be judged by our one-offs.
Check out Hornby’s purposeful use of adverbs—obviously, apparently, clearly. Are they foreshadowing anything about this narrator’s reliability?
I’d make the case that despite the fact that the first-person narrator is speaking directly to the reader, which carries the whiff of telling, this character is actually “showing” us quite a bit. What do you think? I’ll ask again at the end of the post.
If nothing else, the woman is self-referential to the point of obsession. Repeated throughout the story, almost as if a mantra, is a version of these paired sentences, from p. 8: “I’m not a bad person. I’m a doctor.”
She also tells us why she’s a doctor: She liked the way it sounded.
I thought it made me seem just right—professional, kind of brainy, not too flashy, respectable, mature, caring. You think doctors don’t care about how things look, because they’re doctors? Of course we do. Anyway, I’m a good person, a doctor, and I’m lying in a hotel bed with a man I don’t know very well called Stephen, and I’ve just asked my husband for a divorce.
Interesting accumulation of detail here on p. 8, wouldn’t you say? Especially since we don’t learn that our narrator’s name is Katie until page 31. This sets up a deep inner rift between “who she wants to appear to be” and the seemingly less important sense of “who she is.” This inner crisis escalates throughout the novel as she considers whether to stay with her husband.
On one hand, she’s the kind of woman who commits for life. On the other, she is a woman whose desire to break her vow seems justifiable in light of her husband’s persistent anger. But here’s the kicker: she convinces him that she’s right, and he takes action. He finds a spiritual teacher who leads him toward inner peace and inspires his desire to do good works—works that inconvenience Katie and awaken her to her own long-suppressed anger. The question shifts: if she can no longer justify her righteous indignation in the face of her husband’s anger, who is she?
This novel is well worth reading for the way Hornby completely embodies this complex female point of view, and its many laugh-out-loud moments have punchy insights that will linger.
But there’s more than entertainment here for a writer. Stay alert for the ways the author uses exposition to both show and tell.
So what say you, about the first excerpt of Hornby’s exposition? Telling or showing? If showing—what did the character “show” us, besides her desire to talk about herself? Do you ever think of how you can still “show” through exposition?
[coffee]
Kathryn Craft (she/her) is the author of two novels from Sourcebooks, The Art of Falling and The Far End of Happy. Her forthcoming book, Crafting Story Movement: Techniques to Engage Readers and Drive Your Novel Forward, draws from decades of experience as both a story consultant and a movement specialist/dance critic. Learn more on Kathryn’s website.
Kathryn, such an intelligent essay! No surprise, of course. You always bring a unique (and useful) perspective. Like all adages, “show, don’t tell” has its limitations. As you illustrate with your excellent example, exposition can convey voice, point of view, and the positioning/reliability/worldview of the narrator, as well as guiding the reader across time and space. It’s more than the thread that stitches the scenes together. It’s part of the fabric of the novel. Or can be, if used skillfully. Thank you!
You’re welcome, Barbara. Thanks for stopping by!
That outtake by Hornby was very interesting. My sense is that this shows a character desperate to make the reader believe she’s likable/worth rooting for, despite her actions. Her self-effacing language is subtly manipulative; it would be interesting to know if that’s the author pulling strings or a character revealing something with a dangerous potential. Thanks for sharing, Kathryn!
And since it’s the opening, Hornby need only raise these questions. I found this an interesting hook. Why is she speaking to the reader this way? And because she seems “desperate,” as you say, it’s interesting how she takes her sweet old time telling us that that reason she is in the car park is to join her lover. As if she needed to relieve her psychic dissonance.
Kathryn–your posts are always well worth another writer’s time. I just happen to be reading Hornby’s novel, so what you say is especially interesting.
IMO, the first-person narrator’s direct address to the reader is what sets the passage apart from the usual understanding of exposition. Instead of abstractions detailed in the past tense (It was best of times, it was the worst of times), the narrator is revealing herself and her circumstances in the present, relying on a few concrete details to anchor the moment in realistic terms (carpark, Molly’s teacher, mobile phone). True, the second Hornby quote is loaded with abstractions, but the reader has by now bought into the convention that allows the narrator to be in bed with someone as she tells/writes–and the stage and voice are in place for the reader.
I’m glad you chose to use this example: Hornby writes in a witty way on adult matters for adult readers. It’s worth noting he’s a Brit: in the States, we admire and even give prizes to such British writers, but few of Our Own Kind writing with wit rather than melodrama manage to get beyond the gatekeepers.
Hi Barry, how funny you are reading the book now, too! The copy I read arrived at my lake house with my sister and it was a highlight of my summer.
Love this: “…the reader has by now bought into the convention that allows the narrator to be in bed with someone…” So true, in a literal and metaphorical sense. There is a promise of deep POV, but from someone unable to share her true motives. And your last sentence is so maddening I really can’t think about it too much—second guessing the industry’s collective guesses about their “market” is not a pastime I can take on—although I suspect you’re right.
Thank You for this post Kathryn.
Your example reminded me of a novel called ‘Bright Lights, Big City’ by Jay McInerney which is written in 2nd Person. Here’s the opening:
“It’s six a.m. do you know where you are?
You are not the kind of guy who would be at a place like this at this time of the morning. But here you are, and you cannot say that the terrain is entirely unfamiliar, although the details are fuzzy. You are at a nightclub talking to a girl with a shaved head. The club is either Heartbreak or the Lizard Lounge. All might come clear if you could just slip into the bathroom and do a little more Bolivian Marching Powder.”
What your example and this one have in common is that they show how the character is surprised with their actions even though they shouldn’t be.
Yes, great comparison, James. Thank for offering it up. I think the McInerney example takes Hornby to a greater extreme. Because it is second person, and the desire for more drugs is mentioned straightaway, it almost seems as if the blame for such behavior lies, in part, with the reader. An interesting way of involving the reader in the story stakes.
Kathryn, I’ve not read Nick Hornby but quite delighted at the passages you quote. I’ll be picking up his books. I’m not quite sure whether the narrator is unreliable or not yet–she seems very honest and perhaps a bit perplexed that she finds herself in the situation she’s in. It’s as if there’s already a story about her and she’s trying to set the record straight with “my side of the story.” Thank you for this illuminating essay.
I love your take, Vijaya, and I think there’s a lot of truth in it: she suddenly finds she does not fit the persona she has built for herself. Really makes you think about how we might do the same in our own lives, and how vulnerable we become when we must set that persona aside, whether to re-evaluate or let someone beyond that gate. I’ve read two others by Hornby—ABOUT A BOY and LONG WAY DOWN—and found both full of humorous yet impactful insights. Enjoy!
I don’t think there’s any longer doubt that exposition is as effective as action in bringing the fictional experience alive for readers.
The techniques of “telling”, indeed, have ascended to the point where “showing” has begun, to many, to feel old-fashioned, a mid-20th Century mode of narration that worked best for noir crime stories and alienated anti-heroes.
Intimate, get-into-my-head, my-every-stray-thought-deserves-deep-consideration mode is what we crave, and that’s not wrong.
But exposition in service of what? Revealing character, deepening a connection with the reader, misleading the reader, delving into inner life and the intangible world that is as real to us humans as what we see and hear…all of those are good uses of exposition.
Hornby’s narration does all of that, yet I would argue that unless this mess of a doctor becomes something larger and more significant for us (she does), then intimate POV is only shallow, the fiction equivalent of “real housewives” reality TV, pulling us tightly into a character’s experience but an experience that is superficial.
Big topic, much more to say, love to discuss with you in person!
Luckily, Don, we’ll have that chance at UnCon! I always appreciate the depth of thought you bring to such topics.
Subtle cues in this opening promised a layered story, and I trusted Hornby would deliver an arc so that this “mess of a doctor” (great term!) could evolve. I was not disappointed. While the story didn’t exactly go where I thought it would, the ending felt right and real and true.
Looking forward to seeing you soon!
I agree tht this is a big topic, and thanks Kathryn for approaching it with such insight. Like many facile dictums that get tossed around, “show don’t tell” is something said far too often precisely because teachers, agents, and editors are forced to read so much bad writing, i.e., where the telling has been poorly executed. I’m not sure showing is quite as passé as Don suggests, but that could be because I’m a sucker for mid-century noir. And yet, wasn’t that the genre that gave us Jim Thompson, who wrote from the psychopath’s POV? Speaking of “Intimate, get-into-my-head, my-every-stray-thought-deserves-deep-consideration mode.” :-)
Yes, I think we will have a LOT to talk about at the UnCon.
So looking forward to meeting you in person, David! NOW we think of pitching a panel, lol.
Honestly, we are constantly grazing huge topics here at WU—there’s only so much you can cram into one blog post. That’s why I like to call them “slices of craft.” Each one offers a new tool that can contribute to your problem-solving skills as a writer, but none of them can really be used independently.
Don,
I got the exact opposite impression. When I read Hornby’s excerpt I was immediately reminded of a film noir, and a very specific movie. Do you remember the Gloria Swanson film, Sunset Boulevard? Most especially the opening? The main character’s body floats in a pool with a bullet in his back. The main character’s present-time voice-over explains that a murder has been committed. and from this TELL by the main character, the story unfolds of how he ended up dead in a swimming pool.
Hornby’s main character is not dead in a pool, but sitting in a car in a Leeds parking lot telling her husband she doesn’t want to be married to him anymore. And from this TELL to us the audience, her story unfolds.
In Sunset Boulevard the story pivots on how the character came to be floating dead in the swimming pool. I haven’t read HOW TO BE GOOD, but I’ll bet that the story pivots on the Leeds parking lot and how it was there that she told her husband she doesn’t want to be married anymore. In both these stories the defining outcome for the character comes from a TELL at the beginning. Both stories intrigue the audience from this TELL to want to read on and uncover the HOW of the WHAT HAPPENED.
Which brings us to the main point of Kathryn’s post, and the yes or no about the advice of *show, don’t tell*. Perhaps it needs filing in the same drawer as *don’t use adverbs*. Because, it seems very clear to me that it’s not what techniques one uses while writing, but how one executes those techniques.
You realize, of course, that the voiceover device at the beginning of Sunset Boulevard means that the film is narrated by a swimming pool??
Seriously, Horny’s opening, ask me, requires a leap of faith, because at first I found nothing whatsoever to like about its highly self-involved, self-important, self-pitying narrator. It gets better, though, and indeed I think I used it as an example in one of my books.
Will you be at Un-Con? I sense many a story confab in the offing.
Regretfully no. I’m sad about missing all the great discussions of craft. However, I count myself lucky to be a part of this community, with this blog where where I get to learn and discuss craft all the time. So, thank you for your part in that.
I recently gathered up my courage and started working on a novel that’s been brewing for quite some time. I read my copy of The Fire In Fiction from cover to cover again, before I took the plunge.
Hi Bernadette, sorry I won’t see you at UnCon. I’m not familiar with Sunset Boulevard, but I appreciate the similarity in voice to noir.
To me, this opening struck me as funny. She’s sitting in her car, calling home to keep life flowing smoothly in her absence, about to sleep with her lover (who leaves the story shortly but returns later to great comic effect), and she has a sort of wake-up call that she’s not at all the type of person she thought she was.
I found this relatable, especially if you follow the hints that while self-awareness has smacked her in the face, she hasn’t fully risen to greet it. The way she sets off those “ly” adverbs reveals that self-awareness has snuck up on her, and that there was nothing obvious, apparent, or clear about it.
It’s a trick to reveal a character at a moment of change while first introducing her, but Hornby did so without pure telling (asking that you sit back and listen). He required that we sort through the self-referential verbiage to get a sense of her, which involved me on a “showing” level ( ask that you add a few things up). Gaps between what she says and does continue to engage throughout the novel.
Hi Kathryn,
I’ll miss you at the Uncon. And, the wealth of information and learning you, and WU provide, is appreciated.
I’m intrigued by the revelations offered story-wise by revealing a character at a moment of change, at the very beginning of a story. Although, I’ve read stories before that incorporate this technique, I’ve never really defined exactly what that technique was, and the defining helps to understand its usefulness in launching an interesting story. Thank you for this post. It’s been a mind-opener.
I have a rule for myself that separates showing from telling in deep pov: the character has to have a strong reason for thinking what she does at that moment – and it can’t be to educate the reader. Otherwise, it’s the equivalent of “As you know, Bob” in dialogue – the characters have no reason for their words to each other except to fill the reader in – and it should be known by its real name, ‘info dump.’
That’s what drives me crazy in so many modern books, the constant shifting back and forth between feeling with the character and filling the reader in.
If you’re going to do deep pov, for heaven’s sake stay in it! Then we can eavesdrop.
Hi Alicia, Thanks for sharing your rule. I agree that the character’s scene goal must guide inclusion—that’s smart.
I’m not so sure I agree with your last paragraph, as I understand it. I can think of any number of reasons to adopt a more fluid point of view, zooming in deep when need be and pulling back to take in a larger picture elsewhere. One reason is that we don’t always perceive life’s most important moments when we are in them—sometimes events simply unfold, and it is only in retrospect that we realize their import. At such times, deep POV can be intrusive and forced.
Another determining factor might be how many POV characters you have—not everyone considers life as deeply, nor will their deep thoughts feel as relevant to the work.
In this case though, you’re right: this character is setting an expectation that she is the type of person to constant question and analyze her motivations, and so one would expect her to continue to do so, unless the plot forces a situation in which she can no longer energize the force field of her persona.
I zoom – but from the character’s point of view (and usually not more than once per scene).
Everyone self-talks – that’s what’s interesting. Some do it extensively, others in scraps when necessary.
I have three pov characters in close third, and alternate scenes because that’s what this story needs.
And it’s a smooth zoom as opposed to a close followed by a distant followed by a middle-distance – those feel like hopscotch. Never two characters povs in the same scene. Once you know whose head you’re in, you should stay in that for a complete section of arc – getting part of the whole story from that character. I know other methods are popular with some, but I can’t read head=hopping, so I don’t write it.