: Re: How Much Exposition is Too Much Exposition I am in the process of figuring out how to write a mostly autobiographical piece (maybe, eventually, novel) about my experiences related to dancing

@Dunderdale623

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Is there a good reason for the expository sections to be in the book? If you were to remove them entirely, would the book suffer? If the answers to both of these questions is "no", then I suggest removing these sections entirely, or at the least paring them down.

However, things are rarely so simple. Sometimes writers put scenes in a book simply for color, and while they're not necessary for the plot, the book seems les interesting and drier without them.

The most likely solution to this is to find small ways to link the two sections. For example, knowing an obstacle you faced when learning dance X might lend poignancy to a scene where it was important you dance those steps and were concerned with getting them right. (You can even invert this: Say, we read a scene at a dance event, then jump back in time to where you learned something that makes the earlier scene seem different.) As long as this is done subtly, it works amazingly well. (You can even use repeated phrases to do this, or repeat locations or even colors and smells.)

If you're concerned that your flashback scenes might read like a dance manual, why not turn this on its head and write them literally like a manual? As long as you keep them short, this is the kind of device that can let a book breathe, varying the prose and letting you play with timing. (Just keep those bits short.)

In the end, just write it and worry about making it better later on; finish the first draft and then worry about all this stuff.

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