Exposition

"I don't know what to do, Sis! What? I've never called you "Sis" before? You're right! It is oddly clunky and expositional. I mean, I know you're my sister, so who am I saying it for?"

- Francine, American Dad

"-- I can't believe we've lost a bet and have to spend the night in this old haunted house!

-- That's an oddly complete summary of our predicament."

- Robot Chicken

Exposition is a literary tool that is used to give information to the audience through Dialogue, description, Flash Back, or narrative.

In Nonfiction, exposition is commonly found in essays, directions such as recipes and instructions, encyclopedias, and biographies. Exposition in Nonfiction is usually achieved through description.

In Fiction, exposition can be given in multiple ways. Sometimes it's as simple as a character observing a headline on a newspaper and sometimes as complex as the narrator giving an overview of the full history of the fictional world.

Exposition is a two-edged sword. While it is extremely useful for establishing setting, plot, and characterization, too much exposition at once can bog down a story and slow the pace to a crawl. An exposition that is overly long or wordy is known as an Information Dump (or Info Dump for short) and is very difficult to do well.

See Information Desk for where characters learn things; may overlap with this, considerably.

Tropes
See also:
 * Dialogue
 * Narrator Tropes


 * Aside Comment
 * As You Know
 * And Another Thing
 * Recap By Audit
 * Recap Episode
 * Tell Me Again
 * Before the Dark Times
 * Captain Obvious
 * Captains Log
 * Cassette Craze
 * Combat Commentator
 * Constantly Curious
 * Description Porn
 * Encyclopedia Exposita
 * En Route Sum-Up
 * Explaining Your Power to The Enemy
 * Expo Label
 * Exponential Plot Delay
 * Exposition Beam
 * Exposition Break
 * Exposition Diagram
 * The Big Board
 * Expospeak
 * Expospeak Gag
 * Exposition Intuition
 * Exposition of Immortality
 * Exposition Party
 * Flash Back
 * Flavor Text
 * Fictional Media
 * Fictional Document
 * Happy Flashback
 * Haunted House Historian
 * He Knows About Timed Hits
 * Info Dump
 * Intro Dump
 * It Gets Better
 * Theory Before Phenomenon
 * Info Drop
 * Inner Monologue
 * Inner Monologue Conversation
 * Just Between You and Me
 * Keep Reading
 * Lethally Expensive
 * Lecture As Exposition
 * Let Me Get This Straight
 * Little Jimmy
 * London England Syndrome
 * Luckily My Powers Will Protect Me
 * Mr. Exposition
 * Naive Newcomer
 * Narrating the Obvious
 * Narrator
 * Newspaper Dating
 * Obstacle Exposition
 * Opening Monologue
 * Opening Narration
 * Opening Scroll
 * Parrot Exposition
 * Parrot Expowhat
 * Postponed Question
 * Rambling Old Man Monologue
 * Repeating So the Audience Can Hear
 * Sounding It Out
 * Sounds of Science
 * Story Breadcrumbs
 * Talking Is a Free Action
 * Thinking Out Loud
 * Third Person Flashback
 * Troubled Backstory Flashback
 * TV Telephone Etiquette
 * Two Scenes One Dialogue
 * War Was Beginning
 * The Watson
 * What Is Going On?
 * What Year Is This
 * We Have Been Researching Phlebotinum for Years
 * You Got Your Exposition in My Argument