Tag: Exposition

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Five by Ilona Bannister: A tense moral experiment that puts the reader on trial

Mandy Webster

There’s something quietly unsettling about the opening premise of Five by Ilona Bannister—five strangers on a train platform, one of whom will be dead in minutes—and the novel wastes no time making you complicit in that outcome. From the first pages, you’re not just observing these characters; you’re weighing them.

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Set against the ticking clock of an approaching train, the novel stretches a matter of minutes across its entire length. It’s an ambitious structural choice, and at times, a challenging one. Bannister intersperses the present-moment tension with flashback chapters that unpack each character’s history—the struggling gambler, the abrasive elderly woman, the overwhelmed mother and her volatile child, the polished yet fractured businessman. These glimpses into their lives are essential to the book’s central question: who deserves to live?

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Mastering Flashbacks: A Guide to Enhancing Your Fiction

Mandy Webster

Flashbacks can be a powerful tool in fiction writing, allowing authors to deepen character development, enrich plot lines, and create emotional resonance. However, using them effectively requires careful consideration.

Incorporating flashbacks in your novel is like using a time machine to show your readers what happened in the past.

Potential drawbacks of incorporating flashbacks in your novel include disrupting the pacing of the story, confusing and tiring your readers, and shifting the novel’s focus away from the story’s “present time.” If not handled delicately, flashbacks can feel like emotional manipulation. Readers may sense when an author is trying too hard to elicit a particular response, which can undermine the authenticity of the moment. Here’s how to master the art of flashbacks in your writing:

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How to write backstory without infodumping

Mandy Webster

Infodumping in novel writing refers to the excessive and often clumsy presentation of background information, context, or details all at once, usually in a way that disrupts the narrative flow. This can happen when an author tries to convey too much information in one go, often through long passages of exposition or dialogue, making it feel overwhelming or tedious for the reader.

Imagine how overwhelming it would be to have all this information dumped on you at once!

Writing backstory without resorting to infodumping involves weaving the information seamlessly into the narrative. Here are some techniques to help you do that:

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What is backstory in novel writing?

Mandy Webster

Backstory in novel writing refers to the history and events that shape the characters, settings, and plot before the main narrative begins. It provides context and depth to the characters and can help explain their motivations, conflicts, and relationships.

Effective backstory is blended into the flow of the narrative, keeping the reader engaged while providing necessary context.

Here are some key aspects of backstory:

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What is exposition in fiction writing? Is it the same as “telling?”

Mandy Webster

In fiction writing, “telling” and “exposition” are related but not exactly the same thing. Telling refers to the technique of stating facts or emotions directly, rather than letting the reader infer them through actions, dialogue, or sensory details. For example, saying, “She was angry,” is telling, whereas showing might involve describing her clenched fists or sharp tone. Exposition, on the other hand, is the presentation of background information, context, or explanation necessary for the story, such as the history of a world, character backstory, or details about a situation.

Exposition can be used to describe a novel’s setting. How would you describe this setting?

Exposition can be done through either telling or showing. In short, telling is a technique, while exposition is a type of content. Exposition can sometimes involve “telling” when the writer needs to explain things quickly, but it can also be shown through more gradual revelations or interactions within the narrative.

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Story Structure: In Medias Res

Mandy Webster

The concept of “in medias res” (Latin for “in the midst of things”) in novel writing dates back to ancient Greek and Roman literature. The Roman poet and philosopher Horace wrote about the technique in his Ars Poetica (The Art of Poetry), which was published around 18 BCE. In this work, he advised poets to begin their stories in the middle of the action, rather than at the beginning, in order to grab the reader’s attention and create a sense of urgency. As a novel writing technique, in media res also involves beginning a story in the middle of the action, rather than at the beginning, in order to capture the reader’s attention and create a sense of immediacy and urgency.

The Iliad is an early example of a story that began in the middle of the action. Image generated using AI.

One of the earliest examples of in medias res can be found in Homer’s epic poem, The Iliad, which begins in the middle of the Trojan War, rather than at the beginning. This technique was also used by other ancient Greek and Roman writers, including Virgil in his epic poem, The Aeneid.

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Story structure: The Fichtean Curve

Mandy Webster

The Fichtean Curve, also known as the narrative arc or the dramatic arc, is a storytelling model that describes the structure of a story or narrative. While the term “Fichtean curve” is named after Johann Gottlieb Fichte, a German philosopher who was influential in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, it is not clear if Fichte himself originated the idea of the narrative arc (Writing Manuals for the Masses: The Rise of the Literary Advice Industry from Quill to Keyboard, ).

The Fichtean curve is often attributed to the German poet and playwright Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller, who was a contemporary of Fichte and a close friend. Schiller was interested in the structure of drama and wrote extensively on the subject, and it is likely that he was the one who popularized the narrative arc as a storytelling model.

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Writing Basics

Characterization and exposition in fiction writing

Mandy Webster

Characterization is the process of using words on a page to transform a figure of the writer’s imagination into a living, breathing, whole person in the imagination of a reader.

Characterization meme
Characterization is the process of using words on a page to transform a figure of the writer’s imagination into a living, breathing, whole person in the imagination of a reader.

Exposition = Narrative Summary

In the context of characterization, exposition is a comprehensive explanation of a character, consisting of a list of physical attributes, historical background, psychological profile, or a combination of some or all of these elements. Continue reading “Characterization and exposition in fiction writing” →