Exposition – Don’t Expose the Obvious

Her lovely pet met the accident; she admitted it to hospital. It was crying for her attention. She was sad; she couldn't face this much. She was soft-hearted. She sat down on a chair. It was helplessly watching her. She couldn’t help control her tears and doctor came.

Observe the exposition. Isn’t lots of this is obvious? For that matter, consider following: I had a piece of cake and it was sweet and soft.

Who doesn’t know that cakes are sweet and soft?

Exposition is the back ground of story, flash-back narrative information, description of characters' feelings and description of events taking place on the plot to construct it. It is important for reader to know these details and so is the exposition. 

The mantra of writing – ‘Show, don’t tell’ infers to minimize the expositions and make it invisible so that reader get to know what he needs effortlessly and unconsciously. The best way to create the motivation in the plot for characters to speak realistic dialogues in natural way to reveal information. This is however prohibited to write a California scene, where two characters hardly know each other well and sit to reveal their deep hidden personal truths in a conversation. 

Keep the best for last. That means don’t just reveal everything in a sequence to reader. Reveal only what is needed for him till that moment in the story. There should be a natural flow and least important information should be conveyed first and most should be conveyed for later stage.

Consider the actor in the movie, actor acts to show his feelings. Location, weather, physical appearances of characters etc. is entirely visible and is the prime job of camera man to make it visible. Sometimes, he accentuates it to seek audiences’ attention wherever required. This all has to be shown by words in writing.

Seeds of thoughts

A birthday celebration is going on. Protagonist is happy celebrating his wife's b'day. He has invited his Boss and other colleagues. Most of the colleagues have come and they all are happy for the young couple.

His Boss enters the party hall with a pretty woman. Some of the colleagues know that she was his wife but protagonist gets shocked. She was his ex-girlfriend who got married with the consent of her parents.

The pretty woman greets protagonist with a sweet 'Hello' and they moved. 

Write the exposition to show the changed mood of protagonist and of those reaction who noticed.

- Amit Roop

Build the vocab

Books most purchased and least read are dictionaries. Reason? Dictionaries fail to stimulate the interest. Moreover mere dictionary can never help one build the word power. Not all words deserved to be learnt or used!

Fancy or complicated words are fun to write but create discomfort to reader. Never write those words unless you want to prove your supremacy over reader and are hell-bent to force him refer dictionary.

e.g. “scintillate scintillate asteroid minim” looks fancy but the statement is a challenge for reader to decode whereas “twinkle twinkle little star” is a comfort for even a child.

Building word power is a marathon. Read ‘The Hindu’ daily. This is India’s English newspaper with literary flavor. Have a pencil and write down all the words you are not familiar with – in the newspaper itself. Don’t jump to dictionary; you are reading newspaper complete it; enjoy it. Now search the meaning of all words you have written and write it against it.  Most people read newspaper in the morning with a cup of tea. So keep doing the same.

Now pick the same paper in the night after dinner and copy those word meanings in your notebook. Today’s exercise is complete. Keep repeating this ritual daily and soon you will find encountering same words.

Have patience, keep reading the same newspaper for a year or two. Change the newspaper and repeat the ritual again. 

Building word power takes time and you will emerge as a winner even if you achieve this in 5 years of span. Have a dictionary handy for reference. Install in your cell phone a good dictionary: Oxford or Merriam Webster.

Do review you words’ collection before writing fiction. Use those words you feel appropriate. Once you use any of new word in your writing, you will never forget its meaning.

- Amit Roop

Dialogues – Make the characters speak

I will rescue the world from mysticism and tyranny. Dialogue spoken by Spartan’s King Leonidas. Focus on this and think who can say this? Who is capable to rescue the world? Who has confidence to be able to do this? Who will even bother to do this much? 

This could be none other than protagonist.  Write dialogue to expose characters personality. Write as if they themselves have spoken that. To give the real edge to the scene, many writers don’t hesitate even the language in which that dialogue would have been spoken. Chetan Bhagat has written transliteration in many of his books.

Observe the society, some people have habit of repeating specific words during their conversation. Some have different dialects. Some mix their native language with other language. Every story have various characters belonging to different location and socio-economic status. Decorate your story with these diversities. E.g. Many of Chowkidaars named Bahadur are Nepalese and speak ‘Sh’ for ‘S’ as in ‘Han Shab’.

Don’t just describe the character by its physical appearances, enhance him to look real by the way he speaks. Try to give every character his own unique style. Many writers write dialogues to possess their own personality rather than that of their characters’. 

Write down the complete scene and read the dialogue loud. Does it sound appropriate for the character who is supposed to speak this? The selection of words and style of speaking should match with character’s personality. A professor will not use local language cheap slangs whereas a taxi driver will certainly. A sober rich person will never waste time discussing the souring prices of vegetables; a group of chauffeur will seldom discuss Sensex. 

The writer should have a grip on human psychology. He should demonstrate the extrovert and introvert characters by the choice of words they use while speaking. Read ‘Men are from Mars and Woman are from Venus’ to understand the different viewpoints both men and women perceive things.

Imagine, what would a child say if he doesn’t want to go to school? Probably, he will pretend to feel stomach pain right in the morning and will say: I have severe stomach pain today. That means real life people don’t exactly say what they really want. Create your character to communicate in the same manner. 

There are situations when writers don’t exactly write what real people might say. Consider, you are talking over phone and you repeat many time: ‘what else?’; ‘all well?’; ‘what else?’; ‘all well?’ during the conversation. People repeat sentences while in a conversation but writers mention them only once. 

Dialogues help reader to know about the characters and hidden expositions which are needed for him in order to understand the plot and events of the story. 

Dialogues make the story memorable. Have proper research to make them perfect. Carry on research and rewrite them to sound real.  

Seeds of thoughts:

1)      Write 10 dialogues that only protagonist can speak.

2)      Write 10 dialogues that only antagonist can speak.

3)      Write 10 dialogues that only sidekick can speak.

4)      Write dialogues where your wife wants you to understand that she will not cook food for you tonight or your husband doesn’t want to take you for shopping.

- Amit Roop