: Re: How can one character narrate past events to another character? In my story there is a scene where a character narrates some past to another character. And this past consists of 600 - 900

@Karen856

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Dialogue can be a nice way to do exposition, but it contains the potential to commit one of writing's worst crimes - the "You know - Jane, your sister, who left home when you were five years old" clunker which authors and writers of screenplays and games still seem unable to avoid.

It's worth thinking about how much of the past the second character already knows - or could be expected by the reader to already know. It's also worth considering why the first character thinks it's important they should know this - and perhaps most significantly why they think they should know it now.

Problems are as likely to occur in the responses of the second character as in the telling of the past events. It has to feel genuine to the reader, so comments like "what an idiot", or the second character laughing or shaking their head will be as valuable as questions that lead on to the next disclosure of information - if every response appears to solicit the next revelation, the reader will smell a rat.

There are devices to avoid the obvious pitfalls. The second character could remain silent throughout, or the exposition could be given a section or chapter to itself where the first character takes on the role of the story's narrator for a while (the same thing, but done differently).

But if you do dialogue well, and don't lose sight of the second character's thoughts, that's one of the best ways to reveal additional information.

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