Exposition is a literary device which refers to exposing something to the light of day or the sun. To expose to the sun in this meaning means to make something known. In a play, for instance, the transfer of information occurs from playwright to actor to audience through information being conveyed.
in recent years exposition has become a dirty word and the reason for this is that people generally use very clumsy exposition in their work. This is the case even in major motion pictures such as the dire Day After Tomorrow, when the zoo keepers say 'The Wolves have escaped!', they might as well say 'There are wolves later in this film, just in case you wonder where they have come from'.
Now, the thing is, that information does have to be conveyed, but it needs to be done in a more crafty way, by this I mean that the craft of the writer needs to disguise the exposition, the exposure of the audience to information through other means.
in recent years exposition has become a dirty word and the reason for this is that people generally use very clumsy exposition in their work. This is the case even in major motion pictures such as the dire Day After Tomorrow, when the zoo keepers say 'The Wolves have escaped!', they might as well say 'There are wolves later in this film, just in case you wonder where they have come from'.
Now, the thing is, that information does have to be conveyed, but it needs to be done in a more crafty way, by this I mean that the craft of the writer needs to disguise the exposition, the exposure of the audience to information through other means.