Exposition - How much is too much/too little

[Juia_Darkcrest]

Fiction writing is sometimes referred to as "The Theater of the Mind" where you paint a picture for your readers and write your story within that setting.

You describe the scene, be it a space ship, a banquet hall, a bedroom, a forest, whatever it is, then place your characters into that scene.

My question is; At what point do you consider your descriptions too much, or what would you consider too little?

Example : Your MC is arriving at a banquet hall with his date for a pre wedding ceremony (not the MCs). The hall is onboard an airship, but is only going to significant for this scene then it will never be seen again. How much effort do you put into describing this place? The people inside?

I am writing this right now, and I used to be overly verbose in my descriptions, and now I feel I am under doing it. How would you all write that kind of scene?

What I have written for the description.

Arriving late for the pre-wedding banquet turned out to be a blessing for Nick and Ndonsa, as they avoided most of the speeches and well wishes for the happy couple from the visiting guest. Most everyone had dispersed into groups around the banquet hall, socializing with the wedding party and other guest.


There were lines of tables near the center of the room, covered in trays of food mostly unfamiliar to Nick, with well dressed Koopai placed around it, serving the guest from the buffet. Other Koopai were walking around on all fours, trays of drinks on their shells, weaving among the groups of guest to ensure no ones drink was empty for long.

 

[BearlyAlive]

Just enough for the readers to imagine it for themselves. Less is more for descriptions, IMO. Unless you've been dashing out prose on the regular, in that case, you're forced to continue. Maybe write a bit about the uniqueness of the location and then leave it at that.

 

[AnEmberOfSundown]

A little trick that can help the exposition not feel like exposition is to have a character slip it in as dialogue/action. If I can borrow your example to illustrate (obviously I have no idea how your character talks but this is just in my head):

There were lines of tables near the center of the room, covered in trays of food mostly unfamiliar to Nick, with well dressed Koopai placed around it, serving the guest from the buffet. Nick glanced down at a Koopai as it walked past on all fours.

"Do you think they have to train to keep the tray on their shell like that or is it an instinctual thing?" He plucked a drink from the weaving server and sniffed at it.

In this case, the balanced tray is illustrated by his sardonic comment and the reasoning (to keep guests topped off) is implied by him taking one and doing just that.

 

[Juia_Darkcrest]

A little trick that can help the exposition not feel like exposition is to have a character slip it in as dialogue/action. If I can borrow your example to illustrate (obviously I have no idea how your character talks but this is just in my head):

In this case, the balanced tray is illustrated by his sardonic comment and the reasoning (to keep guests topped off) is implied by him taking one and doing just that.

I see what you did there, and if the Koopa were unthinking in this fanfic of super mario bros 3, I would probably steal that. However, I wrote this as they are normal people, and just doing a job now, with full medical coverage for the courses, that the MC and other reincarnators run.

 

[Eldoria]

It depends on how you want to make your story's atmosphere feel more alive. I tend to write descriptions to illustrate how the atmosphere brings the plot to life, using a pattern of general description leading to specific descriptions. This also serves as a bridge or transition between scenes.

For example, if you're writing about a reception atmosphere, you can describe the general atmosphere of the reception from the MC's perspective, such as how crowded the room is, what decorations are generally present, and what food is generally served. If you want to be more detailed, you can have the MC move around and observe the details of the reception.

For example, the MC might pick up a glass of orange juice and notice how it tastes. The point is, the description should bring the atmosphere to more alive

A description is considered excessive if it describes something irrelevant to the story. For example, you might describe a steak in detail, but your MC only tastes the cake. That would be a wasted description and insignificant to the story.

 

[CinnaSloth]

I think it reads fine. Most people can imagine a wedding banquet, seeing them in manga, movies, or a random tv series.
In my opinion, the most important thing are your characters, what they're doing, or saying, especially if the scene doesn't serve too much importance. (only being used once and never again). A quick scene drop is totally fine.

The only thing I'd always recommend, is throwing in extra descriptions IF there's something specific that the characters might interact with like a piano nestled in the corner of the room that they just happen to go over and play. or a coat of arms with two crossing swords that they pull the moment a fight breaks out in order to defend themselves. etc etc.
otherwise, I agree with everyone else, less is more, everyone knows there's going to be food, and music, cups for drinking, people dressed in formal attire etc etc, things that don't truly need to be described.

A cave as a cave is a cave; Unless it's a mineshaft.

But then again, if you're RR Martin who describes everything for entire chapters just to say little john took a piss on a wall, then that's up to you as a writer. You know?

 

[Gray_Mann]

But then again, if you're RR Martin who describes everything for entire chapters just to say little john took a piss on a wall, then that's up to you as a writer. You know?

Rookie numbers. Robert Jordan would do an entire chapter of this, and Little John STILL wouldn't be at the point of dropping his pants to whip it out to even piss yet. Perhaps in the THIRD chapter?

 

[Juia_Darkcrest]

I think it reads fine. Most people can imagine a wedding banquet, seeing them in manga, movies, or a random tv series.
In my opinion, the most important thing are your characters, what they're doing, or saying, especially if the scene doesn't serve too much importance. (only being used once and never again). A quick scene drop is totally fine.

The only thing I'd always recommend, is throwing in extra descriptions IF there's something specific that the characters might interact with like a piano nestled in the corner of the room that they just happen to go over and play. or a coat of arms with two crossing swords that they pull the moment a fight breaks out in order to defend themselves. etc etc.
otherwise, I agree with everyone else, less is more, everyone knows there's going to be food, and music, cups for drinking, people dressed in formal attire etc etc, things that don't truly need to be described.

A cave as a cave is a cave; Unless it's a mineshaft.

But then again, if you're RR Martin who describes everything for entire chapters just to say little john took a piss on a wall, then that's up to you as a writer. You know?

I usually think of Robert Jordan for that, Martin killed his MC (Ned) then everyone else, so I take him as an example of what not to do

Rookie numbers. Robert Jordan would do an entire chapter of this, and Little John STILL wouldn't be at the point of dropping his pants to whip it out to even piss yet. Perhaps in the THIRD chapter?

jinx

 

[Gray_Mann]

jinx

Great & Terrible minds think alike.

 

[CharlesEBrown]

Rookie numbers. Robert Jordan would do an entire chapter of this, and Little John STILL wouldn't be at the point of dropping his pants to whip it out to even piss yet. Perhaps in the THIRD chapter?

Well, he had to describe the bowl he was using so clearly that you could reach out and FEEL it, let you know how the room smelled, what was going on out side... and still only give you one or two details about how the character looked. And the next chapter would start to describe his clothes, then jump to another character for no apparent reason, have that character start to DO something ... then come back to Little John, because he remembered that he wanted to have a bird singing outside, and needed to describe the bird and the tree it was in.
And this was BEFORE the brain tumor.

 

[abu_nur]

Just be careful not go clog it together. If you think a lot of text clog the atmosphere rather than help it, get rid of it or space it apart. Large paragraphs intemidate readers.

 

[AmbreaTaddy]

Fiction writing is sometimes referred to as "The Theater of the Mind" where you paint a picture for your readers and write your story within that setting.

You describe the scene, be it a space ship, a banquet hall, a bedroom, a forest, whatever it is, then place your characters into that scene.

My question is; At what point do you consider your descriptions too much, or what would you consider too little?

Example : Your MC is arriving at a banquet hall with his date for a pre wedding ceremony (not the MCs). The hall is onboard an airship, but is only going to significant for this scene then it will never be seen again. How much effort do you put into describing this place? The people inside?

I am writing this right now, and I used to be overly verbose in my descriptions, and now I feel I am under doing it. How would you all write that kind of scene?

What I have written for the description.

Arriving late for the pre-wedding banquet turned out to be a blessing for Nick and Ndonsa, as they avoided most of the speeches and well wishes for the happy couple from the visiting guest. Most everyone had dispersed into groups around the banquet hall, socializing with the wedding party and other guest.


There were lines of tables near the center of the room, covered in trays of food mostly unfamiliar to Nick, with well dressed Koopai placed around it, serving the guest from the buffet. Other Koopai were walking around on all fours, trays of drinks on their shells, weaving among the groups of guest to ensure no ones drink was empty for long.

To each their own styles. One of my favorite webnovel was written on a theater format, so no description other than location indication, like :

[Evening, party hall]
Character : "Woah, this venue is splendid !"

But also, one of the most well known French author, Emile Zola (we study almost all his books in school) takes 3 entire pages to describe a table in 'L'Assomoir'.

So, yeah, to each their own. You can't please everybody, and your style won't suit everyone's taste. However, if you want a general rule of thumbs : everytime you take the time to describe something, it slows the action down, so think of description as a slowmotion. Like, for exemple, when your character enters the party hall and is blinded by the lights and the beautiful garments. You can take some time to describe that, the things that catch his eyes, his feelings, etc... However, if there is an action scene of the character fleeing, don't describe the texture of the road, it would slow down his escape !

 

[empalgepuk]

I have a policy to always limit my paragraphs under five sentences. If a description is too long, either I compress the sentences or remove the least significant parts. If I really need a long description where snipping and compressing won't work anymore, I split them into two paragraphs at most.

 

[_StrayCat_]

I try to weave my exposition into actions or dialogue, and here I think there's a great opportunity to do bring the exposition and atmosphere into the actions.

Arriving late for the pre-wedding banquet turned out to be a blessing for Nick and Ndonsa,

So they're late arriving into a wedding on an airship which feels like a very vivid scene in itself that you'd want to bring out a lot of that to the reader.

as they avoided most of the speeches and well wishes for the happy couple from the visiting guest. Most everyone had dispersed into groups around the banquet hall, socializing with the wedding party and other guest.

Here's the first opportunity to turn this into action. They've avoided the speeches and well-wishes, but are they realizing that as they are cutting through banquet? The buzz of the airship humming beneath the chatter of the dispersed groups of guests?

There were lines of tables near the center of the room, covered in trays of food mostly unfamiliar to Nick, with well dressed Koopai placed around it, serving the guest from the buffet. Other Koopai were walking around on all fours, trays of drinks on their shells, weaving among the groups of guest to ensure no ones drink was empty for long.

Nick might be noticing the trays of unfamiliar food picked over by the guests as they weave through the tables, waving off a well-dressed Koopai walking on all fours, serving ornate drinks, ensuring no guest was left with an empty drink for long.

I think it's a scene that has plenty of opportunity to let the readers see and hear the bustle of a busy wedding on an airship while Nick and Ndonsa are actively moving through environment rather than being just exposition, and can be done so without having too much written into it. It makes a passive moment an engaging active one.

 

[Juia_Darkcrest]

I try to weave my exposition into actions or dialogue, and here I think there's a great opportunity to do bring the exposition and atmosphere into the actions.



So they're late arriving into a wedding on an airship which feels like a very vivid scene in itself that you'd want to bring out a lot of that to the reader.



Here's the first opportunity to turn this into action. They've avoided the speeches and well-wishes, but are they realizing that as they are cutting through banquet? The buzz of the airship humming beneath the chatter of the dispersed groups of guests?



Nick might be noticing the trays of unfamiliar food picked over by the guests as they weave through the tables, waving off a well-dressed Koopai walking on all fours, serving ornate drinks, ensuring no guest was left with an empty drink for long.

I think it's a scene that has plenty of opportunity to let the readers see and hear the bustle of a busy wedding on an airship while Nick and Ndonsa are actively moving through environment rather than being just exposition, and can be done so without having too much written into it. It makes a passive moment an engaging active one.

i like some of those...

the lateness was due to what happened in the last chapter (I write smut so I think you and my reader can figure that out =) ) but the rest of these are good ideas. thank you!