: Well, the paragraph in its early form is large, cludgy and intimidating as-is, and explaining it through dialogue is usually the better way to go with plot-important details. In one case, the

Well, the paragraph in its early form is large, cludgy and intimidating as-is, and explaining it through dialogue is usually the better way to go with plot-important details.

In one case, the reader is watching a character who's invested in whatever concept that needs explaining, well, explaining it. In the other, the reader is being sat down by the narrator and having information shoved down their throat.

Using dialogue for too much exposition is egregious, and can turn a perfectly decent character into little more than an exposition fairy, but if you're a good character smith, then you should be able to use the fact a character is the one expositing to realistically limit the amount of droning exposition is happening; after all, people only speak so much, right?

Turning exposition into a conversation allows for a scene to do double-duty; explain story concepts/settings, and explore characters.

And while your second example is by no means good ('some additional 5 servers' should be 'an additional five servers', the quasi-robotic explanations of both the doctor and Richard, the weak connecting paragraph), it's still better than the first.

There are cases where paragraphs can be used to skip needless dialogue exchanges, but generally when a play-by-play enactment of a conversation about the topic would be banal, and doesn't explore plot nor character.

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