Expospeak: Difference between revisions

{{tropeUseful Notes}}

{{quote|''"Send a message back to Command Central on Earth and ask for their advice, which we will be able receive immediately even at this great distance, thanks to the ingenious manipulation of coherent radiation through a Bose-Einstein condensate and the bizarre influence of the Aspect effect, which enables us to impart identical properties to remotely separated photons," Captain Buzz told the feathered Vjorkog at the comms desk, "and tell them our life-pod is going to explode in eight seconds."'' |'''Christopher Backeberg Kwazulu Natal''', 2006 Winner of the [http://www.bulwer-lytton.com/ Bulwer-Lytton fiction contest], Science Fiction category. }}

'''Expospeak''' is [[Exposition]], often an [[Info Dump]], about the world itself.

It's not simply limited to technology: [[Science Fiction]] writers want to explain ''everything''. How does their evil plan work? What's their motivation for carrying it out? How old is the character? What's his backstory? What's the political history of the region he's living in? A good writer in other genres will probably ''know'' all of these things, but only in [[Science Fiction]] will the writer feel the need to actually ''tell'' us all of it -- itit—it frequently seems as though the author is less concerned that the audience won't understand what's going on, and more concerned that they might not believe that he's really thought everything all the way through. Sadly, this often serves the opposite purpose, making the audience all the more painfully aware when the explanations don't quite add up. The [[Continuity Nod]] abounds too.

[['''Expospeak]]''' is facilitated by:

* [[As You Know]] -- Note—Note, though, that not all instances of [[As You Know]] are [['''Expospeak]]''': when an [[As You Know]] is used to reveal something that previously happened off-screen or to reference a previous episode, that's not [['''Expospeak]]'''. When it's used to frame an explanation about how the ''world'' of the series works, it is.

To better see what this sounds like, consider [http://www.thecenternetwork.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=7012 this story by Mark Rosenfelder]{{broken link}}, which applies the techniques of [['''Expospeak]]''' to a non-[[Sci Fi]] story.

Note that some recent series -- especiallyseries—especially ones which have had mainstream success -- havesuccess—have tried to avoid [['''Expospeak]]''', such as the new ''[[Battlestar Galactica Reimagined(2004 (TV series)|Battlestar Galactica]]'' and ''[[Doctor Who (TV)|Doctor Who]]''. What they pick up in the mainstream, they often lose on the fringes, as fans become angered and accuse the writers of sloppiness because they ''didn't'' explain everything. A different example of [['''Expospeak]]''' would be ''[[Gun BusterGunbuster]]'', where the [['''Expospeak]]''' was limited to [[Omake]] segments on the tapes/laserdiscs/DVDs, which were completely separate from the main show.

A predilection for [['''Expospeak]]''' hasn't prevented [[Police Procedural]] shows such as ''[[CSI]]'' from leaping to the top of the [[Ratings]] (and [[Dan Brown]]'s books, laden with Expospeak about different subjects, to the top of the bestsellers list), lending credence to the oft-expressed idea that the reason speculative fiction only ''seems'' to be in decline as a genre is because its tropes have been adopted by the mainstream.

See Also: [[Luckily, My Powers Will Protect Me]], [[Calling Your Attacks]]