: Re: Using questions in dialog to facilitate exposition What are the guidelines on using questions in dialog (between ignorant characters) to expose setting and backstory? A few exchanges between my

@Sent2472441

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I think it's great if you can work exposition into believable dialog. But the key word here is "believable".
The classic case of unbelievable dialog is the "as you know" conversation. Like:

"I'm from Detroit," Bob said.
"As you know," George replied, "Detroit is a center of automobile production."

Equally bad is when a character asks about something that he would surely know if he was really the person you present him to be. A common technique in fiction is to have a character who is ignorant to justify why other characters must explain things to him. This can be tricky, though, because sometimes it's implausible that such an ignorant person would be present. Having a crew member on a star ship who doesn't know anything about space travel would be a strain. Having a passenger making his first trip on a star ship would be more plausible. Etc.
You can sometimes work "as you know" statements into dialog if they're a step along to the way to a conclusion that is not necessarily obvious.

"Well as you probably know, Detroit is a center of automobile production, and automobiles use a lot of steel, so the recent increase in steel tariffs has really hurt us."

You can also work such statements in as exclamations or expressions of surprise or puzzlement.

"But why would the mayor of Detroit support steel tariffs when Detroit is a center of the automobile industry and the auto industry uses so much steel? Won't that hurt his city's economy?"

Or, to shift the context to one where I can think of an applicable example:

"Sally is getting divorced? But this will be her third divorce in four years!"

It would not be surprising for someone to say that, even if everyone present knew all about her history of divorces. The speaker's point is presumably not to inform his listeners about Sally's marriage history, but rather to express shock or surprise about it.
Or in general, you can have someone relate a fact that the other character's already know if it is presented, not that he is informing them about this fact, but that this fact is a reason for something.

"I could never vote for Governor Jones," Bob said. "He's pro-gun control."

It may be that all the other characters know that Governor Jones is pro-gun control. The other characters may all know that Bob is anti-gun control. But even at that, they would not necessarily know that he considers this sufficient reason to decide how he will vote. A person could make a statement like that to convey information that his listeners don't know, and just "along the way" for his statement to be clear he must refer to things that they do know to put his statement in context.

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