: Re: How to write internally emotional characters? Over the past couple of days, I've asked questions about writing female characters with agency, and writing female characters as a male writer. Both

@Welton431

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I agree, too much exposition. Which likely means, too little "setup" in your book.
If Celeste thinks Marko is brilliant at chess or Go, that should have been shown earlier, in the story setup. (ACT I, typically first 20% to 25% of the story.)
You are being too repetitive, you don't trust your reader or you have fallen into over-emphasis, saying the same thing multiple times in different words to make sure the reader "gets it". I've bolded some of what are effectively repetitions to convey the "I don't know" claim in this passage:

Celeste looked at him blankly. “I clearly don’t know either. This is beyond [me] anything I have the toolkit for understanding.” She turned, looking around the area, trying to find something… anything familiar. She saw an olive grove in the distance, but didn’t remember it. Had it been there before? She didn’t know. “Fuck!” she said.

Saying "I don't know" five times doesn't create the sense of disorientation I think you are looking for.
Here would be my first draft on your scene. Yours would be different, but to show you what I mean. I've made them more collaborative, as well.

They raced down the hill, dead even halfway but Marko pulled ahead. Then stopped short, in the middle of a meadow, looking into the distance.
"What happened?" Celeste said, a little breathless, pulling up to him.
Marko turned his head to look at her. “I have no idea where we are or how we got here.”
Celeste looked too, and realized he was right. She turned her gaze to her right. It felt vaguely familiar, but she couldn't quite recall where she had seen it.
“Fuuuuck!” she said, then took a deep breath and blew it out. "Me neither."
She flashed on why it was familiar. "The hills. They look the same as the island we were on yesterday. Right?" She was turning back to the left, and spotted something, pointing, "Look! That villa. Remember?"
Marko looked with her. "Yes! But it's new now. And the gardens are much larger. And not flowers anymore."
Celeste felt her pulse in her throat. "And there is no information booth, or parking lot. No paved roads, anywhere."
"Like we're back in time. That olive grove behind it is new, too."
That's impossible.
She put her hands to her head to feel for a holo viewer, but felt nothing. Her alarm rose, her breath still short. "It's a trick, Marko. That island is a hundred miles from here. This isn't real!"
"Don't panic," Marko said. He stepped to her, offering his hand palm up for her to take."We made a wrong turn, I think. It's real, but a set for a holo game or something."
She took his hand, and squeezed it hard for a moment, then took a deep breath. "Those are all simulations."
"Okay," he said, nodding. "A resort re-creation? A replica made by robots. Let's go see what this villa is about."
That's level headed. He's right. Gather evidence. Solve the problem.
She felt slightly embarrassed, she had been silly. The villa was the only evidence of humans in sight. She firmed her grip on Marko's hand and stepped forward, resolute. He responded in kind.
"If this is a replica it must have cost a fortune," she said. "I hope they have a restaurant."

Hopefully that helps. I left out the exposition, invented some stuff. And mine is longer, I think, with less information conveyed than yours. The point is instead of telling us all about Marko and Celeste, we reveal them slowly, all through their actions and dialogue. Readers don't mind learning what they need to know as they need to know it, and it is easier to remember if it happened in a scene.
The reason exposition usually doesn't work is because you are asking us to memorize dry facts and history, and we (readers) just cannot.
But we can remember a visualized scene and character actions (including feelings conveyed as part of the scene). This takes longer, but readers don't mind reading if a scene and interactions are in progress.
The Hollywood maxim is, 'Dialogue IS action'. Dialogue should always have an element of conflict in it, even if it is slight disagreement, even if that disagreement is only expressed in thought. It can also be surprise at something somebody said, confusion, resentment, anger, pity, etc. But preferably not just a long talk where everything is in agreement. It should also involve some stage craft, characters are moving, thinking, itchy people!
And although it is tempting to think of them serially (Marko says something, then Celeste says something, then Marko considers that and replies), IRL while you are talking I am thinking and half ignoring you, and vice versa. Think, what is Marko thinking about when Celeste is talking, and vice versa? It isn't always a volley, the same person can speak twice in a row, and the response to a statement may have nothing to do with the statement, the respondent's mind may have gone off on another track. That will come to you naturally if you stop to consider whether that happened or not.
Finally, your virtual acceptance of time travel is too quick. We don't believe impossible things until we are forced into it, and people from C23 will have sophisticated, immersive entertainment that will make them think of many things before actual time travel. They need to exhaust every possible other explanation first. It may take a serious injury or death before they accept that what they are seeing is real, and not acted. Hence the "resort for the rich" idea, a futuristic Disneyland, and the get it, nobody breaks character, ever, because it would cost them their job.
Of course, even in Disneyland, Goofy will break character if a man is disemboweled and dies in front of him. When something like that happens and none of the "actors" break character, and Celeste doesn't believe it was some kind of illusion, then she believes it's real. They time traveled.

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