Fiction Lessons from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop: “As You Know Bob” — When Exposition Masquerades as Dialogue
"As You Know, Bob." — When Exposition Masquerades as Dialogue
by: TK Kenyon
Author of RABID, coming in 2007 from Kunati Books
If your dialogue sounds too stilted, you may have exposition passing itself off as dialogue. Dialogue's one and only purpose is to elucidate the tension between characters. It is not, ever, to convey information. A bad example of what I mean:
Exposition masquerading as dialogue: "As you know, Bob, we've been stuck on this desert island for twenty years, eating only the coconuts that grow on the one tree and fish which we catch with our hands. We have several vitamin deficiencies, and you've been picking your nose this whole time. Stop it, or I'm going to kill you!"
Or:
Dramatized exposition, and one line of dialogue: Ted pounded the coconut open with a rock. It wasn't quite ripe yet, but he was so tired of fish, and his fingernails stung in the salt water where they cracked and peeled.
Bob sat on the beach a few yards away. He was picking his nose again. Again.
"Stop it!" Ted screamed and picked up the rock he had used to smash the green coconut into meaty fragments.
October's essay at http://www.tkkenyon.com: Interior Monologue: Just Think No!
About The Author
(c) 2006 by TK Kenyon
TK Kenyon is a graduate of the world-famous Iowa Writers’ Workshop with an M.F.A. in fiction (Truman Capote Fellow,) holds a Ph.D. in molecular virology, and did postdoctoral research at the Center for Neurodegenerative Disease at the University of Pennsylvania, studying Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and other maladies. TK Kenyon has published numerous short fiction and non-fiction pieces in prestigious journals. The current issue of American Short Fiction (Summer, 2006) includes “The Law of Large Numbers.” More about TK Kenyon and RABID, the blockbuster and controversial novel forthcoming in 2007 from Kunati Books, are at the official website: http://www.tkkenyon.com.
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