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 (talk) 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 (talk) 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 (talk) 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 (talk) 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)

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)

I concur with this User’s commentary. I would also appreciate somebody, who is familiar with Writing and Editing, to further explain the meaning of “Idiot Lecture and Exposition,” thanks. Mark Halsey. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Markhalsey (talk • contribs) 16:51,15 December 2017 (UTC)

The phrase Idiot lecture is explained in the sentence in which it is mentioned. — Anita5192 (talk) 01:17, 16 December 2017 (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)

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)

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 (talk) 08:25, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

Causal analysis

I don't understand why when I search for Causal analysis, I am redirected to this page. I am sure this is in error, or I know even less about causal analysis than I thought. 192.213.136.129 (talk) 15:23, 9 August 2017 (UTC)

Agreed — bizarre on the face of it, and nobody's stepped up in two years for a w.t.f.

A new disambig may be necessary, as the term appears in at least Exploratory causal analysis and Accident analysis and Causal graph. It's outside of my experience, so I'm hesitant to muck it up, but will take a whack at it if nobody steps up.
Weeb Dingle (talk) 16:58, 3 November 2019 (UTC)

I have changed the redirect target from Exposition (narrative) to Exploratory causal analysis.—Anita5192 (talk) 19:09, 3 November 2019 (UTC)

complaints

Really not a very good article. Mostly, it seems like someone wrote a paean to the genius of Jo Walton for coining a term (wowee!) then tacked on a few related thoughts and decided it was done. As a speculative-fiction fan of almost a half-century, and an occasional writer and writing instructor, I have never before encountered the term "incluing" — here, it comes across as gratuitous kissing-up. Mention it maybe, then move along (or create its own article). (It's a recurring WP misspelling, but does appear in Cyberpunk (novel) though not Jo Walton.)

While Infodump redirects to this page, it is not explicitly connected to the glancing mention tacked onto the end. What was it called BEFORE tech wonks like me tagged it thus in the '80s (from the term core dump)? or is this implying that expositional suffocation didn't exist before The Computer Age?

There's an overall tone of textbooking &/or howto, not least being the There are several ways to accomplish exposition, a promise that's unfulfilled.

Overall, it'd be nice to find an article that speaks about exposition, refers the WP user to credible texts FFI, and maybe even gives a couple of brief examples (preferably selected by some cited source) to compare-and-contrast major groups of narrative form.
Weeb Dingle (talk) 13:57, 19 October 2019 (UTC)

Response to Input

I propose drastic changes to this article. I will find the time and resources to research and update it. The article is lackluster and on a quick glance of the history, has gone through a lot of changes. The wording was almost verbatim to its references and still has similarity. Additionally, as previously mentioned, exposition is a well known technique used throughout story-writing; yet, this Wikipedia page portrays it as if it is bad. And has very little detail

I think some real research should be done to cover the issues mentioned here.

• Fix outline
• remove any sense of opinion (from the individual writing the article)
• add more sources, and review current sources (SAT study book used to define exposition? Makes me think a high schooler defined the term. Surely, there's more sources?)
• Is there a distinction between plot dump vs info dump?
• How infodump differs from exposition
• fix incluing section and determine if it is necessary. If so, include who coined the term and if it is still regularly used

Happy to contribute, will likely pick up some references. Plan to at least start the process in fixing up this page, with the hope of the community adding onto it and correcting anything as needed.
– Sir Rin (talk) 03:47, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

Good luck, I hope you, or in any case someone, can get this done. In its current state this article is unencyclopedic garbage; it's basically a poorly written opinion piece that clearly does not belong in Wikipedia. 50.72.9.214 (talk) 17:18, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

Unfortunately, life gets in the way but I do wish to address this page even if it wasn't when I was initially outlining improvements. This will be on my list. :: Sir Rin (talk) 01:54, 26 May 2021 (UTC)