Death Knell

Have you ever seen a show called "Dead Like Me?" Something of a cult classic of recent vintage about a disillusioned college dropout who becomes a grim reaper after being killed by a flaming toilet seat from outer space. I really enjoyed it myself. And it's not just because the perceptive, extraordinarily cynical but somewhat naive main character sounds an awful lot like me. It's also because the actress who plays that character is really cute.

Even so, the show has problems. Problems beyond my need to shout "Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die!" everytime Mandy Patinkin walks in. Which is a lot since he's a major character. No, its biggest problem is that it's over-narrated.

Now, we've all seen times when excessive narration actually seems to work. This is one in a thousand. Dead Like Me does not pull it off. Most products, regardless of medium do not pull it off. And yet, I see it all the time as a reader.

Perhaps the most infuriating to me is when people write about a three page prologue that basically spoils the entire book. They must have seen it work once upon a time. Maybe with a trick ending. They combined the knowledge that it can be done with the knowledge that I'll disembowel them with a melon baller if I see one more book opening with someone waking up.

The problem is that most authors tell us too much. This is called exposition. I wrote a song about it this morning while I was on the can to help you remember what it is, and how I feel about it.

"Exposition"
To the theme tune of Oklahoma

Exposition, where the text goes sweeping down the page
and the facts you list, so we get the gist,
and those facts come right before my raaaaaaaage.



I'll work on a second verse later. Or never, since I don't know how the rest of the song goes. Regardless most of those three page prologues are heavily exposition and they reveal an enormous amount of information in a very short period of time. It throws the pacing and honestly makes your book less interesting. Stories, like people, are best experienced a bit at a time and with a little mystery as it goes along. You think I care where your 64 year old ME protagnoist went to Elementary school? What brand of undies his wife wears? I know those aren't the details most authors will inundate readers with, but it might as well be. Stick to the facts at hand. Tell us what we need to know but work it into the story. Yes, a book which starts with the house burning down is doing better on page one than the book that starts with waking up. But when your second paragraph reads like

"If only I'd known at the start of the summer that my long lost identical twin would burn my house down, I probably wouldn't have invited them to live with me. Oh, there were all kinds of signs too. {insert list of story spoilers here}."

If you must do this, remeber not to give too much away. Remember To Kill a Mockingbird? Great book. And it starts that way too. Not with a house burning down, but hinting at the ending. Except it gives you only a few choice pieces of information about events that don't happen until several years after the narrative starts and occur only at the very end of the book. What did I say before about seeming non-sequitors that it takes most of the book to truly understand but grabs you immediately? I said they were good. Lo' and behold! One of the most celebrated and widely read novels in American history follows that formula.

I'm jus' sayin' is all.