Creative Writing Tips

I thought I would share some tips on writing that I have come across. The first problem is exposition, and how to deliver it. Exposition is essentially backstory, information about a person, place, thing, relationship, etc. It can also be grueling to read if not done right. Exposition can come out in two ways, narrative or dialogue. Depending on what your strong point is will decide where you think it should go.

If done incorrectly, it can ruin the pace of the story. The reader will feel like they are reading an instruction manual instead of very interesting history about the main character. One of the easiest ways to hide exposition is to place it inside dialogue, usually a conversation between two people. If it is history the main character does not know about, it gives you an excellent chance to let another character explain how things work.

It is important that instead of a block of narrative, you do not just stick quotation marks around it with a "he said," tacked on. The conversation must be natural with interruptions, questions from the main character. A good idea is to make the other character less than clear. It allows the main character to ask for a clarification.

Anybody can sit at a table and spew out exposition; the key is to make the conversation dynamic. A good tip you can get from films. Movies are very limited on time, and pacing is a big part of the editing process. One of the major enemies to pacing is exposition. Talented directors will use motion to give the illusion that something is happening when all that is really occurring is a bunch of talking. Even a cut back and forth may not be enough.

A good example is Back to the Future where the conversation at the dinner table is a lot of exposition on how Marty's parents met, what dance they went to, and how they fell in love. It used a combination of good acting, good writing, and motion. Instead of just sitting at the table, Marty's mother is up, getting a drink while she is talking. It makes it feel like something is happening even though nothing really is.

You will see this a lot in film, two characters walk and talk together, they might be playing a sport like basketball. Anything that involves the characters moving will lessen the blow to pacing that exposition gives. The Count of Monte Cristo is another great example where the priest gives Edmund all of his background history, yet he does so while crawling through tunnels. You may not even realize that it is all exposition because moving from prison cell to tunnel to prison cell to another tunnel masks it.

While we are on the topic of dialogue, it would help to bring up tips on writing better dialogue. He said, she said, he whispered, she said angrily, all can get tiresome not just to write, but to read also. It also makes the scene in the story very bland. Just like movies have the characters moving, your characters can be just ask mobile. It does not even have to be walking around, but moving of the body can work too. This is also a good idea for not having to say "the character's name said" all of the time. Saying they do something followed by dialogue allows action to be performed along with dialogue; it also does not require you to specify who is talking.

For example, "I don't suppose you know who killed the postman, Mrs. Leary?" asked Sheriff Froggerty.
"I didn't really get a good look at the man. At least I think it was a man." answered Mrs. Leary.

This could instead be:
Sheriff Froggerty bent over the crime scene, sunlight glancing off the bloody mess on the sidewalk, "I don't suppose you know who killed the postman, Mrs. Leary?"
Mrs. Leary stared uneasily at the blood, something that has always made her sick, "I didn't really get a good look at the man. At least I think it was a man."

It is the same dialogue, but the second example takes out the tiresome "asked" and "answered" and includes narrative on the scene. And if you really think about it, having a question followed by saying the person asked the question is slightly redundant. It is not important to know the character is asking the question, only that the character is talking at all. The sentence will do the rest.

I may be the only one, but when I read, I have a certain voice or tone in my head of how they are talking. This can be lead by the dialogue unless the writer specifies differently. Most of the time, this is midway through a sentence, or at the end of a sentence. So the reader has read all the way through the sentence only to find out that the tone had change. A character being sarcastic, mean, happy, or joking can completely change how the scene is progressing. The style above allows you to set the tone before-hand.