Exposition, or "I first came to Chicago..."
Exposition, or “I first came to Chicago...”
Hi, folks. My name’s vienna_waits, and my topic is exposition and how to gracefully work it into a story. After a general discussion of the key elements driving your use of exposition, I’ll outline several strategies and show they can be used effectively with examples from both canon and fic. (Please note I will only be pulling good, Paul-Gross-arms-worthy stuff from people’s fic here. Yay for well-done exposition!) For the purposes of this post, I’m going to define exposition as “background information that references a) things that happened before the story began, or b) things that happened during the story but are not shown on-screen.”
The three key questions to ask yourself about exposition concern quantity, chronology, and context. By quantity, I mean: How much exposition do I really need? Can I show instead of tell? Instead of dumping it all at once, can I chop it up into nice bite-sized pieces that I can drop at several different points of the story? Take a good, hard look at the information you must get across and see if you can reduce it to its essence. Pretend your exposition is a telegram costing $1.00 a word--how much could you cut and still get the vital information across? Fraser’s Season 3/4 “saga cell” (his expository speech that gets new viewers up to speed on why the heck a Mountie is working with the Chicago police) is a good example of conveying the absolutely essential information in as few words as possible: “I first came to Chicago on the trail of my father’s killers, and for reasons that don’t need exploring at this juncture, I have remained, attached as liaison with the Canadian consulate.”
Second, there is chronology. At what point in the story must you reveal this information before the reader will be hopelessly lost without it? An AU generally has to do a bit of exposition up front, of course, but for “normal” stories, later is generally better; a just-in-time strategy will serve you well. Too much exposition too early on in the story will not only bore (and possibly confuse) the reader, but also stop your plot dead in its tracks. For example, what if Ray Vecchio had told Fraser about beating up and threatening Guy Rankin (the dead guy in “Dead Guy Running”) right after it happened? There we viewers are, in the opening scene of, say, Body Language, and Ray starts up with, “I shoulda hooked you up with my sister when I had the chance. You won’t believe what happened last night...” and tells the whole story. Fraser disabuses him of doing violence to Guy Rankin, and then he picks up Ida’s stuffed rabbit and runs after her taxi. The viewers blink in complete confusion and wonder what the hell that whole scene was about, and then when it’s finally mentioned again a million years later in Dead Guy Running, there is zero tension (if anyone even remembers it at that point). We KNOW for a fact Ray didn’t kill Guy Rankin because we watched Fraser talk him out of it over a year earlier.
Third, there is context, and although this one’s fairly obvious, it bears repeating: does revealing this information propel the action forward? Does it advance the plot? Does it provide or explain critical motivation? Exposition is least intrusive when it is directly tied to action. Revealing something about someone’s past that will determine how they will react to the crisis they are facing right this instant is useful. Character X relaying the results of an off-screen suspect interrogation to Character Y that provides the next lead to investigate is useful (and avoids duplication, since we don’t have to see the interrogation scene, and Character Y and the viewer/reader can be brought up to speed all at once). Here’s a great example from Some Like It Red. Ray goes to the Catholic girls school to talk to Annie, the principal who happens to be an old friend of his, and reveals the results of this (off-screen) conversation to Fraser during the next scene in the Riv:
Vecchio: So this kid Celine turns out to be pretty wild. She likes to run away, and Annie tracks her down. Now Annie doesn't want to report it because if she does, she's gonna be sent home and home isn't a pretty place. Three stepfathers in the past six years. But this time there's something different going on. Some of the girls are getting out of hand. Check this out. [hands Fraser a gun]
In a mere 69 words, we and Fraser learn who Celine is, get context for Annie’s scene in the bar, learn why Annie doesn’t just expel Celine, and see the gun that Celine brandished in the very first scene of the episode, propelling the action forward! Wow, talk about tying things together neatly! Those are 69 very efficiently used words. That entire scene in the Riv is exposition interspersed with cute banter, but it lays the groundwork for the serious grade A crack that begins in the next scene--Fraser in drag!
“Okay, okay,” you say, “I’ve made sure I’m not yakking on and on, I know where I need to put it, and it definitely moves the story forward. But how do I do it?”
Excellent question. Let’s look at some specific ways of getting that exposition done.
1. Just come right out and tell us and get it out of the way
This strategy is especially appropriate for AUs, genderfuck, or other stories that are not your “typical” during-the-series story.
Let’s take a look at the opening paragraphs of Bleeding Towers by Elizabeth Mc:
The reporter read from a teleprompter while she shuffled the papers in her hands. "In our continuing spotlight of Visitors Who Became Heroes on 9/11, I'd like to introduce our next guest, Detective Raymond Kowalski. Welcome, Detective."
"Thank you." Even being freakishly nervous, I remembered to look at her instead of the cameras.
"You're actually a detective in Chicago, is that right?"
"Yeah, that's right."
"And you were in New York for vacation?"
"Kind of. My partner was here on business and I came along for the scenery."
"That would be Constable Benton Fraser?"
"Yeah, that's right."
"Can you tell us what happened that day?"
An absolutely brilliant opening in 105 words, if you ask me. The exposition is framed as an intro to a TV interview and clues us in: Ray and Fraser were in New York City on 9/11 and did something so heroic they’re on TV for it! And now we’re primed to read about what happened that day, knowing it will be rough, but steeling ourselves and going onward. It’s a great story-I think it was the very first slash story I ever read.
2. Flashback/monologue
I’m lumping these together because they work in a fairly similar way. We’ve got great examples of these in canon, too: Ray’s flashback to the 1974 bank robbery in Eclipse, Fraser’s fantastic monologues in You Must Remember This and Victoria’s Secret. This method works best for revealing specific incidents in someone’s past, but it can be extremely effective if used in the right circumstances (or with the right character listening) and really add another dimension to both the character and the present-moment situation.
Here’s a monologue by Welsh from The Giving Tree by Amanda (background: he and Thatcher happen to get stuck in a dark elevator together in a department store) about what happened after his mother left his alcoholic father:
"I'm proud of my mom for getting us out of there. We settled in a different neighborhood a couple miles away and busted our asses trying to help her get by with odd jobs after school, and sometimes during school. We barely graduated. That first year especially was hard on all of us. We went hungry sometimes, but Wilson and I never said a peep about it to her. We hung out with our friends whenever we could, and their moms got into the habit of asking us to stay for dinner or take some extra leftovers home before they went bad, that kind of thing. And then one day a social worker came and wanted to know what we'd like for Christmas. I said, 'A turkey dinner with all the trimmings.' And then I felt bad because I'd implied my mom couldn't get food on the table. But the lady just smiled and said, 'What else?' 'A bike,' I said. And Wilson wanted a hockey stick. And then she sat with my mom for a while and asked about clothes sizes, boring stuff, and Ma told us to go outside and play stickball or something."
Harding took a long breath, and his voice seemed a little more gravelly than usual. "And on Christmas morning, it was like the Garden of Eden under our scraggly little tree. I got new sneakers and pants, not just Wilson's hand-me-downs, and Ma got fancy lotion and these lined leather gloves, and front and center was a brand-new silver bike, all assembled and shiny and beautiful, and Wilson's hockey stick. My mom started crying when she saw the looks on our faces."
As it turns out, he and Thatcher have both pulled wish tags off a Christmas tree to shop for needy kids, and now we understand why Welsh does so. And I’m a sucker for backstory, so I adore reading about characters’ pasts.
3. Need trivia? Let your Fraser do the talking
Have you painted your casefic into a corner? Do you need a piece of historical information, hockey scores from 1976, or a snatch of conversation no normal person could ever have overheard? With just one lick, sniff, or thoughtful look, Fraser can come up with whatever you need to keep the momentum going. Of course, the prime canon example that leaps to mind is his brilliant monologue about the Robert McKenzie in Mountie on the Bounty that straddles both this category and #2. (I couldn’t find a really good example of this in fic, but I’m sure they’re out there-please feel free to help me out in comments!)
4. Call in the media!
If Fraser doesn't have the knowledge you need, well, you can always fall back on the media. Newspaper headlines, radio news, TV news footage, and of course, the reporters themselves (Mackenzie King, anyone?) can be a welcome source of information to clue in the reader and characters on the important background info. The Internet can also come in very handy, and the internal computers at both the police station and the Consulate can spit out the criminal records of your villains, as well as useful addresses, phone numbers, plate numbers, and other bits of helpful information just when your characters need it most. cesperanza gets extra credit for accomplishing no fewer than four things with a single newspaper in Chicago's Most Wanted: 1) it effectively torpedoes Ray's conversation with Thatcher about how he wants to keep Fraser's new life as a criminal mastermind under their hats, 2) ratchets up the tension, as we realize that there are going to be serious consequences for both Fraser and Ray--this is no longer even remotely funny, 3) shows how the public is reacting (more favorably than expected!), and 4) provides a transition to the next scene, where Fraser is looking at the same paper as he smokes a cigarette (reminding us how not-himself he still is). Bow before the brilliance:
"What is it, Constable?" Thatcher said from between clenched teeth. "Can't you see I'm in the *middle* of something?"
"Yes, but--today's paper has arrived," Turnbull said brightly, extending it to her.
"Put. It. Down. On. The. Table." Thatcher looked like she was barely keeping herself in control. "I. Will. Read. It. Later."
Turnbull's face fell; he looked like he might cry. "Yes, but--you see, sir--"
Ray strode over and grabbed the paper out of his hand. "Oh, fuck," he muttered.
Thatcher got to her feet. "What?"
Ray held the paper up so she could see it. "CHICAGO'S MOST WANTED," the headline blared, and then the subtitle: "Does Chicago Have Its Own Robin Hood?"
Underneath was the blurry photograph of Fraser.
***
"Oh dear," Benton said, frowning down at the newspaper.
"Yeah, that's what *I* said," Carlo agreed nervously.
Benton dropped the paper on to the table, shook his head, and took a deep drag from his cigarette. "That's really a most unflattering picture."
5. "You've been very well briefed": bosses, witnesses, and interrogations
Thatcher and Welsh, in their capacities as the head honchos of their respective organizations, often have an opportunity to assign our heroes cases and brief them on what is going on. On the Call of the Wild commentary track, Paul Gross notes that the drawers of Welsh’s desk are stuffed with paper containing old lines, because his office was the setting for so many of the expository scenes and no one could ever remember all the lines they had. Heh. Consider this case-assignment scene from cesperanza's Juggling Act:
I scowled at Welsh; I was getting a really ominous feeling, here. "You should write fortune cookies, sir. Put Grandma's legacy to use."
"An excellent suggestion, Detective," Welsh said, and he was having too good a time for this to mean anything but that Fraser and me were totally fucked. "In fact, let me tell you your fortune right now. You are going to be back here at 9:00 tomorrow morning. You are going to meet with a woman named Ramona Nashville, who just happens to be an old friend of mine from way back. Ms. Nashville," Welsh said, hitting me right between the eyes with it, "is the sole owner and proprietor of Nashville's Traveling Circus."
"Oh, no," I said, shaking my head so vehemently that I thought it would fly off. "No, no, no, no-"
"Is she having some sort of problem?" Fraser asked.
"Shut up!" I yelled at him. "We don't want to know!"
"Why, yes, she is, now that you mention it," Welsh said to Fraser. "Ms. Nashville has become deeply concerned that someone is using her circus as a front for illegal activities. Every place the circus has traveled, there have been burglaries. The local police have, of course, investigated them, but they have been unable to finger any one particular party or parties. The solution, as I'm sure you have already realized, is to put somebody on the inside for a week or two, who can-"
"No. And no. Absolutely not, no way. I'm already undercover-I'm not going undercover on my cover, that's just stupid," I insisted. "I'd be like my own third cousin."
"Has any particular type of item been stolen?" Fraser asked Welsh. "In other words, do the burglars seem to have any particular expertise?"
"Jewelry," Welsh replied, "though they've taken other things when they could."
"Interesting," Fraser mused.
"It is not," I retorted.
"Really, it is, Ray," Fraser said, damning us to circus hell.
Not too long, whittled down to the essence? Check. The actual exposition (information about Ramona Nashville, her traveling circus, and the crimes committed) is only about 175 words, and is nicely broken up by Fraser’s sincere concern and Ray’s outraged horror at the fate befalling him. This is definitely the right point in the story to reveal it, because it wouldn’t have made any sense for Welsh to put them on this case unless he’d seen them juggling in the previous scene. And does it move the story forward? Hell, yes, and seriously, what a payoff--we get Fraser the knife-thrower and Ray the Angry Clown!
But it's not just Welsh and Thatcher who have all the fun. Interrogators (Ray, Fraser, Stella Kowalski, Agent Ford, etc.) and the criminals/witnesses (Big-Toe Blake, Charlie Wong, Garret the homeless psychic, Judy Cates and Keith Warren from Seeing Is Believing, and many others) can all provide helpful information and backstory.
My favorite interrogation scene has to be this one, from Mountie on the Bounty:
Francesca: Why don't you just tell us, Johnny? Spill your guts, 'cause if you don't I'm going to keep talking to you until you're pink in the face.
Thomas: Pink?
Francesca: Yeah. Oh, yeah. I'm going to broil you, baby. I'm going to give you the second degree and if you don't believe me, ask them. I can keep talking longer than an eternity.
Dewey: Even longer.
Francesca: So, beef butt. . .
Thomas: All right, all right, all right! I'll talk. . . It's like you said. We did the robbery for Wallace.
Dewey: What about the boat and sailors?
Thomas: Ah, we blew the reserve and put the gold onto a Hercules. Flew north to a small strip in Manitoba, flying low under the radar. Hit a squall and went into Superior just off of Six Fathom Shoal.
Francesca: Yeah? Yeah? Come on!
Thomas: We been trying to bring it up ever since. But it's not easy. We had to make a mini Bermuda Triangle. That's where Wallace got the idea for the ghost ship. Dress up like the Robert Mackenzie, he said, and scare everybody off.
(And we would've gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for those darn kids!)
6. The prop table
Props have a long and storied history of being used as exposition devices in both fic and canon--remember Fraser opening his father’s trunk in the pilot and looking at the medals, the childhood drawing of the Mountie on the horse? Or gazing longingly at a picture of Victoria in You Must Remember This? Or looking at the picture of Wilson Welsh with Welsh’s dad in Wilson’s trailer in Doctor Longball? Each of these items serves to reveal information about people’s past experiences to the viewer, and in the last example, to provoke discussion among the characters about that past. Your prop doesn’t necessarily have to be a picture--it could be an old trophy, an earring, a letter, a newspaper clipping, a coffee mug with a particular picture or saying on it, an arrest report, a ticket stub--let your imagination run wild. (And of course, since Due South purports to be a cop show at least some of the time, case files are perfectly apropos and wonderful props in their own right.) You can let the item speak for itself, or you can have the character pick it up and think about what it means to him or tell another character about the circumstances surrounding that object (see method #2).
In Exposures by Dira Sudis, photographs don’t just advance the story, they are the story:
1.
The upper third of the image shows a banner, tacked up on the outer wall of a log cabin, bearing the name of Sgt. Frobisher's Northern Detachment. Fraser, in cold weather gear and his Stetson, is posed beneath it, on one knee, his smile fixed and frozen in the grimace of a man holding back a laugh, his eyes twinkling but firmly focused on the camera. Dief sits decorously beside him, but has relented so far as to turn his head. The rest of the picture is a tangle of limbs and fur, an indeterminate number of sled dogs having apparently managed to bowl Kowalski over before the picture could be taken. He's managed to push up to one elbow, with at least two of the dogs sitting squarely on top of him and the others milling around. His stocking cap is half pushed off, revealing a shock of bright blond hair. Kowalski is looking toward Dief and Fraser, his face captured in profile, laughing so hard the flash reflects off tears streaming down his face.
And in Boise, a fantastic story by katallison, we have Vecchio in Vegas, confiding in a prostitute and giving her a very important prop:
"This--" He dropped down onto the loveseat beside her, and then scootched over so he was right up against her, the silk robe rubbing her thigh. "This is something--I want you to take this." He was leaning against her, chin on her shoulder, whispering with his winey-smelling breath in her ear, tickling. "My ... my best friend ... he sent this to me, and I can't ... I can't have it, 'cause it's not something ..." He grabbed her wrist, turned her hand palm-upward, and dropped something into it, a little silvery something. He was still whispering, a blurry boozy rush of words. "--not the kind of thing I would have, it's too dangerous, it's--"
It was--what the hell, a charm or something? She picked it up, examined it. It looked kind of like-- "Is that a snowmobile?" she whispered back, feeling silly and yet like they were sharing a secret, something important.
"It's--sure it is, hell, don't you know?" He took hold of her hand, closing her fingers around it. "It's just--it's not the kind of thing Armando Langoustini would have, I can't have 'em see it, can't--" He stopped, and let his head fall onto her bare shoulder for a moment, and she could feel the sweat on his temples dampening her.
But what about emotional exposition? Can't I let my character's thoughts just reveal themselves as an internal monologue?
Well...yes, up to a point. Let's say Ray is remembering the first time he realized he had the hots for Fraser. In that case, I'd point you right back at the initial three criteria: don't let him natter on for too long, have him remember it at the right point in the story, and make the remembrance mean something--make it propel Ray forward (in the next scene, he suddenly shows up at Fraser's apartment with a pizza or something). I have to admit--and this is just me personally speaking here--that I get really bored with stories where I have to listen to someone's internal thoughts go on and on and on. Even if it's an introspective guy like Fraser. It tends to make me hit the back button. At least break up your internal monologue with some action, as in my very own Forgiven (Background: Fraser has just dug a hole in the ground and gotten all sweaty.):
He blinked and surveyed the scene: the hole was quite a bit deeper than it needed to be, and shovelfuls of dirt lay chaotically piled in every direction like corpses on a battlefield. "Oh dear," he noted absently. Well, there was nothing to be done for it now, and he could probably manage to get most of the dirt back into the hole.
He walked a few meters into the shade, where the birch sapling leaned on the sturdy trunk of a maple, and gathered the young tree almost lovingly into his arms, comforted by the feel of the rough burlap around the rootball against his palms. A hint of a smile played on his lips as he recalled what the birch symbolized: new beginnings, healing and rebirth.
He carefully positioned the sapling in the hole he had dug, feeling drained and empty, the white-hot anger no longer there to goad him onward. He began to shovel the dirt back into the hole, settling into a slow, stately rhythm: push, lift, turn, drop, tamp. Push, lift, turn, drop, tamp. Again and again, until he found himself silently chanting in time, Can-you-for-give-me? Push-lift-turn-drop-tamp. Can-you-for-give-me? He fell into it, the question gaining rather than losing power in repetition, until the world narrowed to the rhythm of his motions and his earnest, almost prayerful plea.
And in conclusion, Ray Kowalski
It was extremely difficult to gather up the examples for this post, because who the heck reads through stories going, “Oh, wow, what a revealing expository monologue about why she became a meteorologist?” or “Who knew that kazoo was such a potent reminder of the abuse Ray suffered at the hands of his father?” No one. And that’s because good exposition is natural above all. Good exposition is woven into the story so subtly that you never even notice how it got there-it just seems like it belongs there, just part of the woodwork. It only jumps out at you if it’s too long, too early or too late, or seemingly unrelated to the story. Please continue the discussion in the comments!
Hi, folks. My name’s vienna_waits, and my topic is exposition and how to gracefully work it into a story. After a general discussion of the key elements driving your use of exposition, I’ll outline several strategies and show they can be used effectively with examples from both canon and fic. (Please note I will only be pulling good, Paul-Gross-arms-worthy stuff from people’s fic here. Yay for well-done exposition!) For the purposes of this post, I’m going to define exposition as “background information that references a) things that happened before the story began, or b) things that happened during the story but are not shown on-screen.”
The three key questions to ask yourself about exposition concern quantity, chronology, and context. By quantity, I mean: How much exposition do I really need? Can I show instead of tell? Instead of dumping it all at once, can I chop it up into nice bite-sized pieces that I can drop at several different points of the story? Take a good, hard look at the information you must get across and see if you can reduce it to its essence. Pretend your exposition is a telegram costing $1.00 a word--how much could you cut and still get the vital information across? Fraser’s Season 3/4 “saga cell” (his expository speech that gets new viewers up to speed on why the heck a Mountie is working with the Chicago police) is a good example of conveying the absolutely essential information in as few words as possible: “I first came to Chicago on the trail of my father’s killers, and for reasons that don’t need exploring at this juncture, I have remained, attached as liaison with the Canadian consulate.”
Second, there is chronology. At what point in the story must you reveal this information before the reader will be hopelessly lost without it? An AU generally has to do a bit of exposition up front, of course, but for “normal” stories, later is generally better; a just-in-time strategy will serve you well. Too much exposition too early on in the story will not only bore (and possibly confuse) the reader, but also stop your plot dead in its tracks. For example, what if Ray Vecchio had told Fraser about beating up and threatening Guy Rankin (the dead guy in “Dead Guy Running”) right after it happened? There we viewers are, in the opening scene of, say, Body Language, and Ray starts up with, “I shoulda hooked you up with my sister when I had the chance. You won’t believe what happened last night...” and tells the whole story. Fraser disabuses him of doing violence to Guy Rankin, and then he picks up Ida’s stuffed rabbit and runs after her taxi. The viewers blink in complete confusion and wonder what the hell that whole scene was about, and then when it’s finally mentioned again a million years later in Dead Guy Running, there is zero tension (if anyone even remembers it at that point). We KNOW for a fact Ray didn’t kill Guy Rankin because we watched Fraser talk him out of it over a year earlier.
Third, there is context, and although this one’s fairly obvious, it bears repeating: does revealing this information propel the action forward? Does it advance the plot? Does it provide or explain critical motivation? Exposition is least intrusive when it is directly tied to action. Revealing something about someone’s past that will determine how they will react to the crisis they are facing right this instant is useful. Character X relaying the results of an off-screen suspect interrogation to Character Y that provides the next lead to investigate is useful (and avoids duplication, since we don’t have to see the interrogation scene, and Character Y and the viewer/reader can be brought up to speed all at once). Here’s a great example from Some Like It Red. Ray goes to the Catholic girls school to talk to Annie, the principal who happens to be an old friend of his, and reveals the results of this (off-screen) conversation to Fraser during the next scene in the Riv:
Vecchio: So this kid Celine turns out to be pretty wild. She likes to run away, and Annie tracks her down. Now Annie doesn't want to report it because if she does, she's gonna be sent home and home isn't a pretty place. Three stepfathers in the past six years. But this time there's something different going on. Some of the girls are getting out of hand. Check this out. [hands Fraser a gun]
In a mere 69 words, we and Fraser learn who Celine is, get context for Annie’s scene in the bar, learn why Annie doesn’t just expel Celine, and see the gun that Celine brandished in the very first scene of the episode, propelling the action forward! Wow, talk about tying things together neatly! Those are 69 very efficiently used words. That entire scene in the Riv is exposition interspersed with cute banter, but it lays the groundwork for the serious grade A crack that begins in the next scene--Fraser in drag!
“Okay, okay,” you say, “I’ve made sure I’m not yakking on and on, I know where I need to put it, and it definitely moves the story forward. But how do I do it?”
Excellent question. Let’s look at some specific ways of getting that exposition done.
1. Just come right out and tell us and get it out of the way
This strategy is especially appropriate for AUs, genderfuck, or other stories that are not your “typical” during-the-series story.
Let’s take a look at the opening paragraphs of Bleeding Towers by Elizabeth Mc:
The reporter read from a teleprompter while she shuffled the papers in her hands. "In our continuing spotlight of Visitors Who Became Heroes on 9/11, I'd like to introduce our next guest, Detective Raymond Kowalski. Welcome, Detective."
"Thank you." Even being freakishly nervous, I remembered to look at her instead of the cameras.
"You're actually a detective in Chicago, is that right?"
"Yeah, that's right."
"And you were in New York for vacation?"
"Kind of. My partner was here on business and I came along for the scenery."
"That would be Constable Benton Fraser?"
"Yeah, that's right."
"Can you tell us what happened that day?"
An absolutely brilliant opening in 105 words, if you ask me. The exposition is framed as an intro to a TV interview and clues us in: Ray and Fraser were in New York City on 9/11 and did something so heroic they’re on TV for it! And now we’re primed to read about what happened that day, knowing it will be rough, but steeling ourselves and going onward. It’s a great story-I think it was the very first slash story I ever read.
2. Flashback/monologue
I’m lumping these together because they work in a fairly similar way. We’ve got great examples of these in canon, too: Ray’s flashback to the 1974 bank robbery in Eclipse, Fraser’s fantastic monologues in You Must Remember This and Victoria’s Secret. This method works best for revealing specific incidents in someone’s past, but it can be extremely effective if used in the right circumstances (or with the right character listening) and really add another dimension to both the character and the present-moment situation.
Here’s a monologue by Welsh from The Giving Tree by Amanda (background: he and Thatcher happen to get stuck in a dark elevator together in a department store) about what happened after his mother left his alcoholic father:
"I'm proud of my mom for getting us out of there. We settled in a different neighborhood a couple miles away and busted our asses trying to help her get by with odd jobs after school, and sometimes during school. We barely graduated. That first year especially was hard on all of us. We went hungry sometimes, but Wilson and I never said a peep about it to her. We hung out with our friends whenever we could, and their moms got into the habit of asking us to stay for dinner or take some extra leftovers home before they went bad, that kind of thing. And then one day a social worker came and wanted to know what we'd like for Christmas. I said, 'A turkey dinner with all the trimmings.' And then I felt bad because I'd implied my mom couldn't get food on the table. But the lady just smiled and said, 'What else?' 'A bike,' I said. And Wilson wanted a hockey stick. And then she sat with my mom for a while and asked about clothes sizes, boring stuff, and Ma told us to go outside and play stickball or something."
Harding took a long breath, and his voice seemed a little more gravelly than usual. "And on Christmas morning, it was like the Garden of Eden under our scraggly little tree. I got new sneakers and pants, not just Wilson's hand-me-downs, and Ma got fancy lotion and these lined leather gloves, and front and center was a brand-new silver bike, all assembled and shiny and beautiful, and Wilson's hockey stick. My mom started crying when she saw the looks on our faces."
As it turns out, he and Thatcher have both pulled wish tags off a Christmas tree to shop for needy kids, and now we understand why Welsh does so. And I’m a sucker for backstory, so I adore reading about characters’ pasts.
3. Need trivia? Let your Fraser do the talking
Have you painted your casefic into a corner? Do you need a piece of historical information, hockey scores from 1976, or a snatch of conversation no normal person could ever have overheard? With just one lick, sniff, or thoughtful look, Fraser can come up with whatever you need to keep the momentum going. Of course, the prime canon example that leaps to mind is his brilliant monologue about the Robert McKenzie in Mountie on the Bounty that straddles both this category and #2. (I couldn’t find a really good example of this in fic, but I’m sure they’re out there-please feel free to help me out in comments!)
4. Call in the media!
If Fraser doesn't have the knowledge you need, well, you can always fall back on the media. Newspaper headlines, radio news, TV news footage, and of course, the reporters themselves (Mackenzie King, anyone?) can be a welcome source of information to clue in the reader and characters on the important background info. The Internet can also come in very handy, and the internal computers at both the police station and the Consulate can spit out the criminal records of your villains, as well as useful addresses, phone numbers, plate numbers, and other bits of helpful information just when your characters need it most. cesperanza gets extra credit for accomplishing no fewer than four things with a single newspaper in Chicago's Most Wanted: 1) it effectively torpedoes Ray's conversation with Thatcher about how he wants to keep Fraser's new life as a criminal mastermind under their hats, 2) ratchets up the tension, as we realize that there are going to be serious consequences for both Fraser and Ray--this is no longer even remotely funny, 3) shows how the public is reacting (more favorably than expected!), and 4) provides a transition to the next scene, where Fraser is looking at the same paper as he smokes a cigarette (reminding us how not-himself he still is). Bow before the brilliance:
"What is it, Constable?" Thatcher said from between clenched teeth. "Can't you see I'm in the *middle* of something?"
"Yes, but--today's paper has arrived," Turnbull said brightly, extending it to her.
"Put. It. Down. On. The. Table." Thatcher looked like she was barely keeping herself in control. "I. Will. Read. It. Later."
Turnbull's face fell; he looked like he might cry. "Yes, but--you see, sir--"
Ray strode over and grabbed the paper out of his hand. "Oh, fuck," he muttered.
Thatcher got to her feet. "What?"
Ray held the paper up so she could see it. "CHICAGO'S MOST WANTED," the headline blared, and then the subtitle: "Does Chicago Have Its Own Robin Hood?"
Underneath was the blurry photograph of Fraser.
***
"Oh dear," Benton said, frowning down at the newspaper.
"Yeah, that's what *I* said," Carlo agreed nervously.
Benton dropped the paper on to the table, shook his head, and took a deep drag from his cigarette. "That's really a most unflattering picture."
5. "You've been very well briefed": bosses, witnesses, and interrogations
Thatcher and Welsh, in their capacities as the head honchos of their respective organizations, often have an opportunity to assign our heroes cases and brief them on what is going on. On the Call of the Wild commentary track, Paul Gross notes that the drawers of Welsh’s desk are stuffed with paper containing old lines, because his office was the setting for so many of the expository scenes and no one could ever remember all the lines they had. Heh. Consider this case-assignment scene from cesperanza's Juggling Act:
I scowled at Welsh; I was getting a really ominous feeling, here. "You should write fortune cookies, sir. Put Grandma's legacy to use."
"An excellent suggestion, Detective," Welsh said, and he was having too good a time for this to mean anything but that Fraser and me were totally fucked. "In fact, let me tell you your fortune right now. You are going to be back here at 9:00 tomorrow morning. You are going to meet with a woman named Ramona Nashville, who just happens to be an old friend of mine from way back. Ms. Nashville," Welsh said, hitting me right between the eyes with it, "is the sole owner and proprietor of Nashville's Traveling Circus."
"Oh, no," I said, shaking my head so vehemently that I thought it would fly off. "No, no, no, no-"
"Is she having some sort of problem?" Fraser asked.
"Shut up!" I yelled at him. "We don't want to know!"
"Why, yes, she is, now that you mention it," Welsh said to Fraser. "Ms. Nashville has become deeply concerned that someone is using her circus as a front for illegal activities. Every place the circus has traveled, there have been burglaries. The local police have, of course, investigated them, but they have been unable to finger any one particular party or parties. The solution, as I'm sure you have already realized, is to put somebody on the inside for a week or two, who can-"
"No. And no. Absolutely not, no way. I'm already undercover-I'm not going undercover on my cover, that's just stupid," I insisted. "I'd be like my own third cousin."
"Has any particular type of item been stolen?" Fraser asked Welsh. "In other words, do the burglars seem to have any particular expertise?"
"Jewelry," Welsh replied, "though they've taken other things when they could."
"Interesting," Fraser mused.
"It is not," I retorted.
"Really, it is, Ray," Fraser said, damning us to circus hell.
Not too long, whittled down to the essence? Check. The actual exposition (information about Ramona Nashville, her traveling circus, and the crimes committed) is only about 175 words, and is nicely broken up by Fraser’s sincere concern and Ray’s outraged horror at the fate befalling him. This is definitely the right point in the story to reveal it, because it wouldn’t have made any sense for Welsh to put them on this case unless he’d seen them juggling in the previous scene. And does it move the story forward? Hell, yes, and seriously, what a payoff--we get Fraser the knife-thrower and Ray the Angry Clown!
But it's not just Welsh and Thatcher who have all the fun. Interrogators (Ray, Fraser, Stella Kowalski, Agent Ford, etc.) and the criminals/witnesses (Big-Toe Blake, Charlie Wong, Garret the homeless psychic, Judy Cates and Keith Warren from Seeing Is Believing, and many others) can all provide helpful information and backstory.
My favorite interrogation scene has to be this one, from Mountie on the Bounty:
Francesca: Why don't you just tell us, Johnny? Spill your guts, 'cause if you don't I'm going to keep talking to you until you're pink in the face.
Thomas: Pink?
Francesca: Yeah. Oh, yeah. I'm going to broil you, baby. I'm going to give you the second degree and if you don't believe me, ask them. I can keep talking longer than an eternity.
Dewey: Even longer.
Francesca: So, beef butt. . .
Thomas: All right, all right, all right! I'll talk. . . It's like you said. We did the robbery for Wallace.
Dewey: What about the boat and sailors?
Thomas: Ah, we blew the reserve and put the gold onto a Hercules. Flew north to a small strip in Manitoba, flying low under the radar. Hit a squall and went into Superior just off of Six Fathom Shoal.
Francesca: Yeah? Yeah? Come on!
Thomas: We been trying to bring it up ever since. But it's not easy. We had to make a mini Bermuda Triangle. That's where Wallace got the idea for the ghost ship. Dress up like the Robert Mackenzie, he said, and scare everybody off.
(And we would've gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for those darn kids!)
6. The prop table
Props have a long and storied history of being used as exposition devices in both fic and canon--remember Fraser opening his father’s trunk in the pilot and looking at the medals, the childhood drawing of the Mountie on the horse? Or gazing longingly at a picture of Victoria in You Must Remember This? Or looking at the picture of Wilson Welsh with Welsh’s dad in Wilson’s trailer in Doctor Longball? Each of these items serves to reveal information about people’s past experiences to the viewer, and in the last example, to provoke discussion among the characters about that past. Your prop doesn’t necessarily have to be a picture--it could be an old trophy, an earring, a letter, a newspaper clipping, a coffee mug with a particular picture or saying on it, an arrest report, a ticket stub--let your imagination run wild. (And of course, since Due South purports to be a cop show at least some of the time, case files are perfectly apropos and wonderful props in their own right.) You can let the item speak for itself, or you can have the character pick it up and think about what it means to him or tell another character about the circumstances surrounding that object (see method #2).
In Exposures by Dira Sudis, photographs don’t just advance the story, they are the story:
1.
The upper third of the image shows a banner, tacked up on the outer wall of a log cabin, bearing the name of Sgt. Frobisher's Northern Detachment. Fraser, in cold weather gear and his Stetson, is posed beneath it, on one knee, his smile fixed and frozen in the grimace of a man holding back a laugh, his eyes twinkling but firmly focused on the camera. Dief sits decorously beside him, but has relented so far as to turn his head. The rest of the picture is a tangle of limbs and fur, an indeterminate number of sled dogs having apparently managed to bowl Kowalski over before the picture could be taken. He's managed to push up to one elbow, with at least two of the dogs sitting squarely on top of him and the others milling around. His stocking cap is half pushed off, revealing a shock of bright blond hair. Kowalski is looking toward Dief and Fraser, his face captured in profile, laughing so hard the flash reflects off tears streaming down his face.
And in Boise, a fantastic story by katallison, we have Vecchio in Vegas, confiding in a prostitute and giving her a very important prop:
"This--" He dropped down onto the loveseat beside her, and then scootched over so he was right up against her, the silk robe rubbing her thigh. "This is something--I want you to take this." He was leaning against her, chin on her shoulder, whispering with his winey-smelling breath in her ear, tickling. "My ... my best friend ... he sent this to me, and I can't ... I can't have it, 'cause it's not something ..." He grabbed her wrist, turned her hand palm-upward, and dropped something into it, a little silvery something. He was still whispering, a blurry boozy rush of words. "--not the kind of thing I would have, it's too dangerous, it's--"
It was--what the hell, a charm or something? She picked it up, examined it. It looked kind of like-- "Is that a snowmobile?" she whispered back, feeling silly and yet like they were sharing a secret, something important.
"It's--sure it is, hell, don't you know?" He took hold of her hand, closing her fingers around it. "It's just--it's not the kind of thing Armando Langoustini would have, I can't have 'em see it, can't--" He stopped, and let his head fall onto her bare shoulder for a moment, and she could feel the sweat on his temples dampening her.
But what about emotional exposition? Can't I let my character's thoughts just reveal themselves as an internal monologue?
Well...yes, up to a point. Let's say Ray is remembering the first time he realized he had the hots for Fraser. In that case, I'd point you right back at the initial three criteria: don't let him natter on for too long, have him remember it at the right point in the story, and make the remembrance mean something--make it propel Ray forward (in the next scene, he suddenly shows up at Fraser's apartment with a pizza or something). I have to admit--and this is just me personally speaking here--that I get really bored with stories where I have to listen to someone's internal thoughts go on and on and on. Even if it's an introspective guy like Fraser. It tends to make me hit the back button. At least break up your internal monologue with some action, as in my very own Forgiven (Background: Fraser has just dug a hole in the ground and gotten all sweaty.):
He blinked and surveyed the scene: the hole was quite a bit deeper than it needed to be, and shovelfuls of dirt lay chaotically piled in every direction like corpses on a battlefield. "Oh dear," he noted absently. Well, there was nothing to be done for it now, and he could probably manage to get most of the dirt back into the hole.
He walked a few meters into the shade, where the birch sapling leaned on the sturdy trunk of a maple, and gathered the young tree almost lovingly into his arms, comforted by the feel of the rough burlap around the rootball against his palms. A hint of a smile played on his lips as he recalled what the birch symbolized: new beginnings, healing and rebirth.
He carefully positioned the sapling in the hole he had dug, feeling drained and empty, the white-hot anger no longer there to goad him onward. He began to shovel the dirt back into the hole, settling into a slow, stately rhythm: push, lift, turn, drop, tamp. Push, lift, turn, drop, tamp. Again and again, until he found himself silently chanting in time, Can-you-for-give-me? Push-lift-turn-drop-tamp. Can-you-for-give-me? He fell into it, the question gaining rather than losing power in repetition, until the world narrowed to the rhythm of his motions and his earnest, almost prayerful plea.
And in conclusion, Ray Kowalski
It was extremely difficult to gather up the examples for this post, because who the heck reads through stories going, “Oh, wow, what a revealing expository monologue about why she became a meteorologist?” or “Who knew that kazoo was such a potent reminder of the abuse Ray suffered at the hands of his father?” No one. And that’s because good exposition is natural above all. Good exposition is woven into the story so subtly that you never even notice how it got there-it just seems like it belongs there, just part of the woodwork. It only jumps out at you if it’s too long, too early or too late, or seemingly unrelated to the story. Please continue the discussion in the comments!