In Defense of Exposition

I see it all the time on social media. Readers, and sometimes writers, complaining about excess baggage in fiction. "Trim the fat!", they demand. "It took ninety whole pages for something to happen!" "What an infodump!"

I was listening to The Movies That Made Me this week and Josh Olson was saying that exposition is the enemy. Cut out all unnecessary detail! Just yesterday I watched all three-and-a-half hours of Killers of the Flower Moon (at last!) and I know the story could have been conveyed with a lot of editorial trims. Thank God they didn't do it. I loved every detail of the movie.

Commercially, that's probably true. Aesthetically, I personally disagree.

Novellas are the most popular literary form today. At least in the independent realm. I'm frankly disappointed in most of them. So many seem to me to be graceless recitation of events, with little atmosphere or character development.

In fact, I am often disappointed when the horror and action begin. I was just getting to know these people! I like them and wanted to spend more time in their company.

I find myself not caring whatsoever about characters in novellas because I don't really know them. I can't picture the story in my head because so little is told about the environment in which they live.

Bill Pronzini is one of my favorite writers. He always takes some time to describe the area of San Francisco or other towns his Nameless Detective character is in. Bill provides historical data about the settings of his stories. On one hand this information does nothing to tell the story or the bare bones of the plot. However I get a strong sense of place, which to me makes the story feel more authentic.

Stephen King is known for the intricate amount of detail he gives to the characters in his fiction. That's what makes them people, not merely caricatures. It's also one of the reasons he has been so extraordinarily successful for the past fifty years.

I love language more than action. I like to see a writer put me in another world, to make it seem real. I want to feel the heat and the cold. I want to taste the food, to breathe in the aromas. I like to know the characters in the books. Sometimes I care about them more than I know the individuals I see in real life. This is why Paul Theroux is one of my favorite writers. No one does settings and characters better than him.

Style over substance? Maybe, but how about a balance of the two?

As for movies, a lot of the independent films I love are nothing but character tics and almost nothing in the way of plot. Patterns of behavior, subtle displays of emotion, commonplace interaction.

I'm certainly not telling anyone what or how they should read or watch a movie. I only know what I like, no love, about storytelling. My kind of stories seem to be rarer all the time, but I am encouraged by recent movies like Jarmusch's Father Mother Sister Brother and The Baltimorons.

Written by Mark Sieber