Thoughts on exposition

[jonno]

my subscribers already got this message, but i was finishing up my line work on page 3 of AM (which will be released friday morning or afternoon in LA i think), and i realised that i had made yet another page of really vague exposition, that adds a little to the story, but isnt really necessary this early on. page 4 starts to delve into the actual plot, and would still flow if i just got rid of the third page. so my questions are:

do you guys particularly like the exposition-y pages?
would it be a better choice to spread the exposition out, or just get it over with?
do large quatities of narration get boring at all?

please let me know
thanks

[joannekwan]

I'm not really a fan, but if it has to be done, I'd much rather the dialogue be spread out 2 or 3 sentences at a time depending on their length. I know it lengthens the pages and you have to draw more panels, but I think it's worth it. I'm more likely to read a long speech 2 sentences at a time across multiple pages than if it was all on one page. Also with the added panels, you can put emphasis on the speaker, their surroundings, other characters, etc so you can use that opportunity to give the speech more depth and impact.

[Sanz]

I feel the same way As joannakwan. It should be spread out.
I feel it gives the reader too much to read at one time. And personally when i see a paragraph on one page with a character explaining. Its a turn off i think when it's broken up across a few pages it's more cinematic if that makes sense and more visiually appealing and less intimidating and less boring sometimes they are needed to explain whats going on but i think it should be spread out

[jacintawibowo]

I've been taught that by the fourth page your reader should be hooked into the story. How you do that is up to you. My personal preference is to put the reader in the same situation as the character, and in a moment driven by action (doesn't have to be guns and a chase scene, it could be a boy falling down a well! Hur hur like mine).
Exposition as an opening is usually received really poorly. I have put off so many comics because they started off with "IN A WORLD WHERE..." and they have pages and pages of how the world was created and how the world-building works and what have you. It can work and there's no true evil with it, but it's generally a poor hook.
I've lately seen webcomic artists try masking exposition under a teacher lecturing their students or telling a story to their child, and it does make the moment feel more intimate, but it's starting to feel like a cliche set up to me.

In general, I avoid exposition in the start of the story.

[eagle1]

A typical fantasy, sci-fi, horror, or superhero comic has a lot of exposition to get done. Period.

The trick is to make it part of the story, and make it interesting. It has to be something that the reader really needs to know right then in order to understand what is going on, but you can also show a lot.

As an example, NO-Earth is a world where a lot of people wear weapons openly, but I have never bothered telling the readers that. They can just look at the art in the various books and pick that up. It's also a world where Geners (genetically modified beings) exist, but I don't need to tell people what a Gener is, or even mention the word when they can see that one of the characters is a humanoid leopard. Work your exposition is as you can or as you need to, but avoid exposition dumps.

Eagle
(Wait'll they see the dragons)

[jonno]

i think i forgot to mention something lol.

i would NEVER throw in giant paragraphs, as i hate when that shows up myself. i usually spread out anything that needs to be said a lot more, and try to give it a really cinematic feel.

bricks of text suck

[Ringarune]

I try to avoid it if I can, but there are times where it's necessary and the most efficient way to present info. In my comic intro, I decided to use exposition since I needed to give some background info on my character in a quick way, but other than that I don't think I'll have too much of a need for exposition in the future.

[Kura]

I think I'm one of the few readers that likes when I hit a exposition page in the manga/comic reading... (it's usually manga I've seen it show up) I duno... I just like knowing how the system/world/power works... even better if you throw diagrams in. (Just as long as it doesn't go on for too long or isn't a lazy page of pretty much JUST text)

[AnnaLandin]

I don't enjoy pages that are solely exposition, but I can live with them when they're necessary - just be sure to get some interesting visuals in there too.

Spreading stuff out if you can is a MUCH better choice in most cases, since that means you get to mix it in with all the stuff that is happening, thus feeding it to your readers in less noticeable qualities.

Exposition is the veggies nobody wants to eat on a plate of delicious food. You have to eat them - they're good for you! - but no one really enjoys it. So eating a spoonful here and there, in between bites of the meal you think is delicious, is probably the best way to go.

(apologies for food-metaphors - I haven't had breakfast yet!)

[shazzbaa]

Words without context get boring quickly; words with context and purpose and emotion are interesting. Narration is hard to keep interesting for a long time, imo, because it's detached.

On your page, you ask:

i want to know what you guys think, would you rather learn a bit more about the main character now, or learn those things about him later on? no real editing would have to be done to just omit the page, it is really dependent on whether you want the real story to start this upcoming page or the one after?

But this is a question only you can answer. It's a storytelling question. When do we need that information?
You have to look at your story and ask yourself -- will learning this info affect our view of the character, right now? Will it affect how we see him, and how we understand his actions? And will that effect be good or bad?

Here's a good example: In Finding Nemo, because we start with the dad fish losing his wife and all their babies, his ridiculous overprotection of Nemo when "the real story starts" instantly makes sense to us -- he's scared to lose the only family he has left. Without that scene, the dad fish would seem obnoxious, and we'd identify more with Nemo's frustration, and it would be harder to get into the story.

The information (Nemo's mom & siblings are dead) isn't as important -- we could follow the story without it -- but the implications (Marlin has lost everything he loves) affect how we understand the story, and that's VERY important.

For the opposite example, I like this one I heard about a movie I haven't seen (Trains, Planes, and Automobiles) where Neal is stuck travelling with Del. We're supposed to find Del annoying, so it's played for laughs that he keeps stressing out Neal. Later in the movie, we learn that Del has lost his wife and is lonely, and the two reconcile. If we had started out the movie with that information, like in Finding Nemo, and understood where Del was coming from, it wouldn't be funny when Neal was annoyed -- Neal would just seem like a jerk. It would mess up the flow of the story.

So, TL;DR -- you gotta figure out how this information affects the way we understand your story and your character, and THAT determines whether you should reveal it now or wait until later. Will this exposition show us something about your character, and is that going to help us identify with him? Or would this info be wasted because right now we're not invested in your character yet and won't care?

[jonno]

wow. that was a really good explanation, and it really has me redesigning the story arc. thanks for that. i guess having this one last page (for now) will be a good idea

[kazukitakamura126]

I'm not a fan of alot of exposition in any form of entertainment. I know its needed to explain some things but, since comics are a visual medium you should try to intertwine the two so you don't need as much exposition.

[BraveHeartTatsumaki]

I actually have to do a lot of explanation for Final Light since I'm comparing the normal world (aka based in our world) with the fantasy one, and there are many things to explain and show so I try to not go on too much with it. I put the ones that are vital for the plot in the comic (I try to not make people get bored so much, for that, beta readers are good as help) and other things I put them in extra pages complementaries for the comic and make the main character (who's the one who gets explained) to assume those things, like she was taught about off cameras :'D

[demthorshie]

I'm actually one who enjoys a long amount of suspense within a story. I actually prefer that the exposition-y pages be extended rather than thrown on the reader's plate right away. I like to keep guessing until I learn the truth, and I sort of like to do the same with my own comic as well! It keeps the brain tickled and it keeps readers interested I think. :3

[Vikiro_Hop]

The more natural you can make exposition the better. There mat be a lot you want to tell the readers, but just remember that you are telling a story not giving a history lesson. Badly done exposition can throw off the pacing of the story while good stuff can fit in seamlessy as the characters interact. Deliver what the reader needs at the time and as you are writing find appropriate places to fill people in.

I love world building in novels and such so I can usually tolerate a bit of exposition. At the same time it can really improve a story when done well and not just a character talking at you.

[UrMom]

Not a fan of it, I can understand the need for a little bit of exposition sometimes, but I'd rather it was left to be figured out. Most of the time it reminds me of how Hollywood dumbs down movies with exposition, and playing out scenes in a way that chooses emotions and what characters to like for you to cater to the masses that don't like to think about stuff, or question anything. Although I don't mind it so much when it's possible exposition being told as a story by another character, I actually think storytelling is a pretty cool thing, especially in a fantasy or paranormal setting.
But really, even though it's so much harder, I'd rather a comic creator put in the effort to get as much of that information across visually as possible. I mean, comics are a visual medium, what's the point of telling your story that way if you're going to paste novel length text all over it? (I know it's possible to do a text heavy comic well, and there are some good ones out there that stylize the comic to where the visuals fit with the text-wall..ness, but a bunch of text is just not my thing) Can't really say much for written stories, since I don't know my ass from a hole in the ground when it comes to that sort of thing, and I'm so nitpicky about writing style that I admit to not reading a whole lot of books...

On a side note, there is a short laidback fantasy comic I've been thinking of doing for a while that would have instances of a character telling stories that could be taken as "world building" exposition to another one, but I'm not quite at the level where I'm comfortable tackling something like that yet.

[tomatobird]

Not on Tapastic, but one really great example of worldbuilding with very very minimal exposition is Derelict by Ben Fleuter. It just throws you into the story, and little by little, due to the images and little snippets from what the characters do and say, you can figure out why the world is the way it is. Of course, depending on what kind of story you're doing, sometimes you might want to get a little bit of exposition out of the way at first, but yeah...dragging it out can get very tiresome

[Vikiro_Hop]

Love that comic, has some really good world building. Definitely leans heavy on suspense and mystery so its a great example of giving the readers just enough to work with.

[tomatobird]

Certainly does! Gunnerkrigg Court does a pretty good job of slowly fleshing out the world as the story progresses too, in a pretty organic way. It helps that it's a very character-based story, so while the worldbuilding is definitely important it is still background to the characters.