problems with exposition and re-writing!!!

[alejandra]

Hello everyone!

Hope your all good, I'm new to all this but I'm loving it cause they are such good quesions/Advice around.

I'm a final year student in university, doing my major big project as a director.
I'm re-writing a script at the moment which I'm converting onto a film. Just in the process of pre-production. The script is written, but my tutors still say to keep on re-writing. The problem is that now I feel that the little changes I do rather than improve the script they are making it worse. But it worries me, as I haven't solved a problem I have with "exposition." I don't want to rely on dialogue to explain the story, and I thought of a narrator, but perhaps this is not the best idea...I have the story, i know it. It's just I have having to make things sooo literal, but I don't want the audience to be like "errrr...what the hell is going on?"

Any advice regarding the matter would be truly helpful!!!

Thanks!

Alejandra xox

 

[Unknown Screenwriter]

Hello everyone!

Hope your all good, I'm new to all this but I'm loving it cause they are such good quesions/Advice around.

I'm a final year student in university, doing my major big project as a director.
I'm re-writing a script at the moment which I'm converting onto a film. Just in the process of pre-production. The script is written, but my tutors still say to keep on re-writing. The problem is that now I feel that the little changes I do rather than improve the script they are making it worse. But it worries me, as I haven't solved a problem I have with "exposition." I don't want to rely on dialogue to explain the story, and I thought of a narrator, but perhaps this is not the best idea...I have the story, i know it. It's just I have having to make things sooo literal, but I don't want the audience to be like "errrr...what the hell is going on?"

Any advice regarding the matter would be truly helpful!!!

Thanks!

Alejandra xox

Alejandra,

Without knowing the story, all I can give is very general advice on handling exposition...

First of all, don't try to impart all the exposition in one fell swoop.

Keep spoon-feeding it to us and IF you can keep dragging it out to the end -- no problem.

One of the problems with most amateur scripts is that the writer feels as if they just have to get all that exposition out there on the table... Usually in the first half of the first act.

That's way too much way too soon.

You already have the script written so what you can do is to analyze each scene and then based on what that scene is about, try to work in small pieces of exposition. You have to attempt to pepper it into the dialogue.

For instance, if one of your characters was abused as either a child or wife, and someone reaches across the table to pick something up next to them and they FLINCH, this action opens the door to that particular piece of exposition.

If you're trying to get a lot of the exposition in through dialogue, it's usually better to try and do it through dialogue that's also providing a lot of conflict within that scene but try not to simply rely on that dialogue alone... Try to get those characters performing actions while speaking their dialogue so you don't end up with talking heads.

I also recommend to go ahead and make a pass on your exposition and simply write it ON-THE-NOSE the first time around unless of course you've been writing for a long long time... Writing it first on the nose and then making a second pass on all the on the nose dialogue is usually the easiest way for developing writers to layer in the subtext.

In other words, you KNOW what the characters MEAN because they are actually saying what they mean via on the nose dialogue.

Now take those blocks of dialogue and analyze them and change them so that the character can get the same POINT across with action and dialogue written with subtext.

For instance...

In a first draft scene, you might have a character that says the following...

TOM​

I understand that you've been
having an affair with my wife. I
don't like that. It makes me mad.​

LOL. Now of course I don't ever want to see dialogue written like that but you'd be surprised... LOL.

So you find those on the nose passages and understand that the dialogue means exactly what it is saying i.e., it is ON-THE-NOSE.

So then you have to analyze it. What is the above dialogue saying?

Tom is talking to someone -- could be a man -- could be a woman. He's telling them he knows they've been having an affair with his wife and he's angry about it.

So now that you KNOW what he really means because he's saying what he really means, you now figure out a way for him to MEAN the same thing but simply say it differently so that it is no longer ON-THE-NOSE.

TOM​

I know what's going on and you're
this close to walking in my crosshairs.​

Okay, first of all, I'm not trying to win an award here... LOL. This is off the top of my head but I'm just trying to illustrate how you have to analyze each block of dialogue and come up with a way of emitting the same feeling AND meaning with more interesting dialogue layered with subtext.

Maybe not the best example but hopefully, it illustrates my point.

So then you have to do the same thing with exposition...

TOM​

I was divorced five years ago and
my ex-wife took everything I had.​

Again, very ON-THE-NOSE. What is he saying? Tom's saying exactly what he means... i.e., that he went through a divorce five years ago and his ex-wife got everything in the divorce. Everything being the house, the kids, most material belongings... Everything.

That's the analysis... It's also expository. Now HOW do you get Tom to say essentially the same thing providing that exposition but in a way that doesn't come off so on-the-nose? You just have to keep playing with it...

TOM​

I'm very familiar with divorces from
hell... You know, the kind where the
bitch takes everything away from you
but the bills?​

Again, maybe not a great example and if I had more time with it -- it would definitely be better but it hopefully illustrates my point. The second block is obviously a little more interesting than a talking head and since it reveals a little info about Tom, it might even make us want to know more about him and his past.

In fact, I highly recommend that you do end up trying to find ways to reveal those little bits of exposition so that we want to know more. If you lay it all out there at once, we won't care about that character nearly as much but if you find or create situations that allow for your character(s) to segue into that exposition and then only give us a taste, we walk away from that scene wanting to know more.

And that's what you want.

Hope that helps...

filmy

 

[clive]

There are a couple of other things you could consider, depending on what kind of exposition you're dealing with.

Some exposition happens when the writer is breaking the cardinal rule: "show me, don't tell me"

For me the first fix is to figure out which pieces of dialogue can be replaced by a scene showing what the exposition is telling. A classic example of this is when a character constantly refers to an incident in childhood, in order to explain a particular piece of behavior... all of which could have been covered by a scene at the start of the film showing the incident.

Filmy's covered the kind of exposition where a character reveals herself in speech...

But there is one other kind... some stories are really about the inner lives of the protagonist. "Hi-Fidelity" is a great example of that. "Hi-Fidelity" is a book adaptation... and the book is all about the inner musings of the central character. Originally that was all handled in VO... but Steven Frears realized that they needed a better device... and, therefore they had huge chunks of the film where the protagonist talked directly to the camera. Truth is, it's a great movie and a great device, but only if the piece is kind of literary and needs that kind of rolling exposition.

The only other thing I wanted to say about exposition is this: The real danger with exposition, is it can rob the audience of anything to do.

Audiences see every film as a puzzle to be solved. A character does something, and you ask yourself "why did he do that?" The purpose of the film is to help the audience answer that question... but in such a way, that their curiosity carries them through the picture.

The danger with exposition is you explain the film... and therefore there is nothing to work out. The film, therefore ends up being boring.

Of course, the flip side of that is giving the audience clues they don't understand and expecting them to work out the killer was locked in a cupboard as a child, simply because she coughs when ever she sees a wardrobe door.

 

[Joe999]

Nice thread, I am enjoying reading the replies and learning myself.

 

[alejandra]

Oh my god...

Thank you all so much!!!

It is certainly a tricky one to do...! I appreciate all your help very much!I couldn't have got better replies!

Alejandra xox ps. Once the film is completed I will send you all the link so you can tell me what you think!

 

[wcmartell]

Almost nothing for me to add, but...

Often bad exposition comes when the characters tell us what happened instead of just showing us the things happening. Or they tell us how they feel, instead of giving us a scene or situation where *we* (the audience) feels.

I have a script tip coming up about visual story telling that began as a review of the Hitchcock movie THE RING. The story is about a boxer who takes a beating by the Champ, after the Champ flirts with the boxer's fiance. After the beating, the boxer wants to get married right away. What does that tell us about him?

After they are married, the wife starts hanging out with the Champ. Now our boxer has no choice but to work his way up to contender so that he can take on the Champ and win his wife back. They have an interesting visual for that - outside the boxing arena is a giant sign listing who is fighting who this week. The boxer's name is at the very bottom of the list in really small letters, the Champ is top of the list in large letters. After every fight, the boxer's name goes up one line - one line closer to the Champ. We can SEE his progress using this device.

*Situations* - Okay, the boxer wins the fight that puts him on the same line as the Champ. He invites his crew to come back to his apartment and celebrate with him & his wife. They get back to the apartment, wife isn't in the living area but the bedroom door is closed. He grabs the champagne and some glasses. Pours everyone a glass, and they start to toast, but he lifts his finger - wait a minute - and knocks on the bedroom door. No answer, he opens it and goes inside... comes out alone. His wife isn't there. The guys on his crew set their champage glasses down and console him. We see the champage go flat in the glasses. The guys on the crew look at their watches, it's late, and leave the boxer alone in his apartment with the flat champagne.

Okay - now that is one sad scene. It made me want to cry. But no one in the scene cries, and no one says they are sad - they don't say anything, it's a silent film. The boxer hides his feelings, but the *situation* is emotional - so we know what the boxer is feeling because it's what we are feeling.

You can also turn exposition into *actions* and *decisions* - things that don't require words. Instead of having characters just do things, or have things done off screen; you want to show the decisions.

- Bill

 

[alejandra]

Great stuff Bill...Thanks!

I really liked the examples you used with that film...It helps

Alejandra xox