<div class="seriesmeta">This entry is part 2 of 2 in the series <a href="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/Best Of 2020/context/" class="series-3987" title="Context">Context</a></div><div class="seriesbox"><div class="center"> <a href="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/Best Of 2020/context/" class="series-3987" title="Context">Context</a></div><ul class="serieslist-ul"><li class="serieslist-li"><a href="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/what-is-contextual-writing-part-1/" title="What Is Contextual Writing? (Part 1)">What Is Contextual Writing? (Part 1)</a></li><li class="serieslist-li-current">What Is Contextual Writing? (Part 2)</li></ul></div><h3>Information Dumps</h3>
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Many times the issues I see in my students’ work are a result of lack of experience obviously. They don’t trust their writing or their audience, or have the skills needed to push out content when it’s needed to be heard by an audience. Consequently, they have info dumps that create thick, stiff and unwieldy scenes.
Learning when to present information is like doing a layer cake (also a great film BTW). The series Shetland always does this well. Unfolding over 6 &#8211; 10 episodes, it can’t just dump exposition. For one thing, it would be as mentioned &#8211; stiff and unwieldy; and for another, if we’re not given the material in context, we’d forget it by the time we got to the end of the series. Also, it would reveal too much.
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<div id="attachment_44038" style="width: 780px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-44038" class="wp-image-44038 " src="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/ShetlandS6_final_23155328_23155318-scaled-1024x639.jpg" alt="" width="770" height="480" srcset="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/ShetlandS6_final_23155328_23155318-scaled-1024x639.jpg 1024w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/ShetlandS6_final_23155328_23155318-scaled-150x94.jpg 150w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/ShetlandS6_final_23155328_23155318-scaled-250x156.jpg 250w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/ShetlandS6_final_23155328_23155318-scaled-768x479.jpg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 770px) 100vw, 770px" />Main cast of Shetland. Photo by BBC</div>
There’s a pacing to information. Anyone who’s done presentations understands this. One slide builds on the previous ones. A step-by-step informational procedure. A TED talk, for example, is similar to what we try to do with our storylines. Any movie or TV series has to keep us engaged and because we come to these procedural series for the mystery, that’s of prime importance.
In the first season of Stranger Things our knowledge about Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown) was dripped out. This kept her mysterious and formed the backbone of the storyline. We got to know her and her story in contextual pieces as needed. It was tremendously effective and kept us watching and watching and watching. We were always hungry for more. Add to this the group trying to find out what happened to Will Byers and the mysteries compound. But how best to keep that edge?
Consider this from the script where eleven first makes an appearance at a diner and the owner can see she’s hungry and also lost.
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BENNY (CONT&#8217;D) 
We&#8217;ll start easy. My name&#8217;s Benny. Benny Hammond.
He holds out his hand. Wraps it around her tiny hand.
BENNY (CONT&#8217;D) 
Nice to meet ya. And you are&#8230;?
Still no response. Benny sighs. He starts to withdraw his 
hand when he notices a SMALL TATTOO on the inside of her 
lower left wrist. It reads in simple black lettering: 011.
BENNY (CONT&#8217;D) 
Eleven?
The Young Girl yanks her hand away.
BENNY (CONT&#8217;D) 
What&#8217;s that mean?
YOUNG GIRL 
No.
BENNY 
Well I&#8217;ll be damned. She speaks.
(beat, considers)
No? No what?
Still nothing.
BENNY (CONT&#8217;D) 
Alright, guess &#8220;no&#8221; more food then.
Benny starts to walks with her plate when:
YOUNG GIRL 
&#8230; Eleven.
Benny turns back around.
BENNY 
Eleven. Yeah. What&#8217;s it mean?
The Young Girl points to herself. We&#8217;ll now know her as: YOUNG GIRL/ELEVEN.
~~~ cut ~~
INT. BENNY&#8217;S BURGERS &#8211; DINING ROOM &#8211; CONTINUOUS
Where &#8220;Eleven&#8221; is finishing off her fries. She becomes aware 
of a soft, HIGH-PITCHED NOISE. Eeeee. Eeee. Eeee.
She looks up. It&#8217;s an old and rusty OSCILLATING METAL FAN. It
SQUEAKS with every turn. Eeeee. Eeee. Eeeee.
It is incessant. Annoying. Eleven narrows her eyes and —
The fan and the blades stop. Like they somehow froze.
Eleven looks away. Content now.
She continues eating her fries
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At this point we’re trapped. We know her name, that she’s been tattooed, and that she potentially has powers. We have to know more &#8211; who/what she is but the Duffer Brothers won’t ever give us more than a few tidbits as the season progresses and the context of who/what she is matures and becomes vital.
And notice the pacing of the scene itself, the way that information is meted out.
1/ She’s caught eating the diner owner’s food. Obviously unhomed or worse.
2/ We see the tattoo.
3/ Her name is the same as her tattoo, apparently.
4/ She seems to be extra-powered because that fan stopped spinning.
The key is, it’s all in context to what’s happening at the moment. We never get information otherwise. Just enough to keep us guessing and keep her story building.
It’s a wonderfully written and executed series from beginning to end.
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<h3>Time/ Place</h3>
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Movies like Attack The Block which takes place on Guy Fawkes Day in Britain or 300 use time and place to give the stories context. Holiday films rise and fall on certain tropes. National Lampoons Vacation and Wet Hot American Summer depend on times of the year.
The recent, multi-nominated The Holdovers works in part because of the situation and the time of year when a curmudgeonly teacher (Paul Giamatti) is forced to watch students who didn’t go home for Christmas break. The time and the place (a now almost-empty prep school) both provide solid context for this film.
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<div id="attachment_44037" style="width: 781px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-44037" class="wp-image-44037 " src="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/holdovers-1.jpg" alt="Creative Screenwriting Magazine " width="771" height="433" srcset="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/holdovers-1.jpg 1280w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/holdovers-1-150x84.jpg 150w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/holdovers-1-250x141.jpg 250w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/holdovers-1-768x432.jpg 768w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/holdovers-1-1024x576.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 771px) 100vw, 771px" />(Paul Hunham) Paul Giamatti in The Holdovers</div>
Moon starring Sam Rockwell is all about place &#8211; a station on the moon.
Murdock Mysteries takes place in the late 1900’s. The reason that’s important to defining the series is that detective William Murdock, Yannick Bisson, ‘invents’ devices that were actually around that time. Headsets, remote cameras, night vision, etc. All play into the solving of a crime but more display the character’s cleverness and create a unique context for the show that couldn’t exist otherwise. The show also uses historical figures to enhance the stories like Edison, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Sherlock Holmes), Tesla, Florence Nightingale, etc. People who were alive at the time of that setting.
The Great Debaters would perhaps not be as powerful as it is if not for the real-life drama that played out in the 30’s when Jim Crow laws (laws that enforced racial segregation) thrived. The accomplishments of this debating team are tremendously amplified given the amazingly difficult road that African-Americans faced. That context wouldn’t be the same way today. Green Book couldn’t be the movie it was for similar reasons.
Prison movies? Imagine Cool Hand Luke, Oz, or Shawshank Redemption in a different place or setting.
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<h3>Warping The World</h3>
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A very small segment of films deal with alternate histories and even fewer put those alternate histories in a context we can easily relate to without a lot of backstory.
Man in the High Castle shows a world in which the Axis powers won World War II. It’s brilliant but has to do a lot of heavy lifting to get us comfortable in that world. Scifi does this a lot because many times we’re visiting other planets or realities.
The brilliant concept of Yesterday written by Richard Curtis and directed by Danny Boyle, puts us in a world where the Beatles didn’t exist. Sorta. There are two people beside the main character who know the group and their music. Point is, the main character Jack Malik, played by Himesh Patel, discovers this fact after an accident and being a musician himself, begins to release the songs as his own. For the most part the world is the same. Odd things like cigarettes not existing for some reason and Harry Potter books being unknown are thrown in but for the most part it’s our world &#8211; just without Beatles. This forms the basis of a pretty great film without measurably taking us of context.
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<h3>Villains</h3>
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Even antagonists demand context. In many drawing room mysteries like Poirot or Death In Paradise who is killing whom for what reason is in context. TV series like Criminal Minds have almost exactly the opposite context in that serial murders don’t have direct connections with victims in many cases.
Midsommer Murders a highly successful episodic Brit TV show, takes this at times to extremes. Count on the murderer or murderers to have been done wrong at some point in their lives. They exact revenge based on a background of what they feel is injustice. Their backgrounds are filled with villainy perpetrated on them or their loved ones. In the same way L.A.S.D. Sgt. Walker learns some truths about his suspects, we as viewers are given context for why the deeds were done.
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<h3>In Conclusion</h3>
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Context rules our lives whether we recognize it or not. Running around in a swimsuit at a symphony concert would probably get you tossed out. At the beach, wearing a tux or gown would get very strange looks.
Our writing in all ways reflects life.
Consider that and put it in context.
<fieldset><legend>Series Navigation</legend><a href="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/what-is-contextual-writing-part-1/" title="&lt;&lt; What Is Contextual Writing? (Part 1)">&lt;&lt; What Is Contextual Writing? (Part 1)</a></fieldset>

What Is Contextual Writing? (Part 2)

<div class="seriesmeta">This entry is part 1 of 2 in the series <a href="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/Best Of 2020/context/" class="series-3987" title="Context">Context</a></div><div class="seriesbox"><div class="center"> <a href="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/Best Of 2020/context/" class="series-3987" title="Context">Context</a></div><ul class="serieslist-ul"><li class="serieslist-li-current">What Is Contextual Writing? (Part 1)</li><li class="serieslist-li"><a href="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/what-is-contextual-writing-part-2/" title="What Is Contextual Writing? (Part 2)">What Is Contextual Writing? (Part 2)</a></li></ul></div>Context is a small word with massive implications. Almost nothing we write, script, novel, or article, is without context. Life itself is all about context &#8211; necessary information for it to be meaningful.
If I say the score of a game was 5 &#8211; 2 and a ‘blowout,’ I’d have to provide context for the assertion. In football, that would not be a blowout; but in soccer, a it&#8217;s a different story. Saying a car getting gets great gas mileage at 15mpg only makes sense if that car was an old muscle car with a massive engine. Modern cars most certainly do much, much better.
In writing, context is key for people to understand your work properly and ultimately to get so involved with your story it moves them emotionally in fear, joy, or anything at all.
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<h3>Act I: Where To Start With Context</h3>
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Act I sets the table for the script. The entirety of Act I is what provides us with our context.
Establishing context in any story involves variations from the norm. To use a culinary analogy, in sauces you start with a basic sauce and then vary them. For example, a tomato sauce can be spun into dozens of different types of that sauce.
For film/TV &#8211; any story &#8211; you start with our current world and go in all different directions from that. Some things will be the same or similar to our norm and some will be wildly different.
As an example, in Damsel, Millie Bobby Brown’s character is the princess of a dying realm. A lot of what she faces is understandable &#8211; evil, love, horses, lances, swords, etc. But there’s a dragon too and the backstory of how and why that dragon exists is specific to that world. The basic sauce is 15th/16th century(ish) England, but with obvious variations.
It’s called World Building. How is money treated? What political system is in place? Do guns always hurt severely or can you recover effectively from a gunshot say to the arm? Speaking of guns, are those used a lot, a little, or not at all? Obviously, in The Sopranos guns are a major part of that world of violence and mayhem.
All this becomes context, a container for your story.
I call it the mythology of your world and it’s essential you understand it so as to know when and how to utilize and explain it. 
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<h3>The Contract With The Audience</h3>
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I noticed that at the movies there were times I never felt relaxed. This wasn’t because some idiot was talking, or crinkling food wrappers &#8211; although a pox on them &#8211; it was because I didn’t feel engaged in the opening scenes.
Once I started writing and defining what was necessary to a story, I came up with the idea of this contract. It’s detailed in my book, Quantum Scriptwriting, but let me give you the crux of it here.
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<h3>Normal World</h3>
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Context demands we understand a character’s normal life. What do they do, how do they do it. The term ‘fish out of water’ perfectly describes this in that our character isn’t in their normal world.
These are powerful and many times funny stories. In Totally Killer written by David Matalon, Sasha Perl-Raver, and Jen D&#8217;Angelo, Kiernan Shipka’s character travels to the past to save her mother from being murdered in the present day. Many things in the present (normal world) come into play in the past, and Shipka’s character must understand how those things have changed. We also have to understand those same things in order for the jokes to land or the story to unravel properly.
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<div id="attachment_44027" style="width: 779px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-44027" class="wp-image-44027" src="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/cokebear-grid-uproxx.jpg" alt="" width="769" height="433" srcset="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/cokebear-grid-uproxx.jpg 710w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/cokebear-grid-uproxx-150x85.jpg 150w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/cokebear-grid-uproxx-250x141.jpg 250w" sizes="(max-width: 769px) 100vw, 769px" />Cocaine Bear</div>
In Cocaine Bear, the normal world is almost all perfectly normal. The one variation is a bear who lusts after blow and will terrorize anyone to get it.
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<h3>The Rules</h3>
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In most films a world is created. It may be as fantastical as Everything Everywhere All At Once or as mundane as Marriage Story. These are containers for both the adventures and the characters. 
The Rules are how those worlds operate, form the basis of the adventures. Again, in movies like Marriage Story, The Verdict, Miss Sloan etc., the basic world is familiar even if they’re specialized to the storyline.
In Pitch Black, a group of individuals crash land on a planet encased in darkness. The creatures they encounter there abide by certain rules of behavior and the men and women in the movie act and react accordingly. The photosensitive nature of the creatures creates that context of behavior.
In The Brothers Sun, certain rules are put forth. Large scale mayhem is the order of the day and contextually, Charles Sun (Justin Chien) is comfortable in that mayhem. But he follows codes of behavior set forth by the rules of his gangster world. In one episode, despite increasing danger to himself and others in his family, he is forced by his codes to deliver a lizard in order to satisfy an obligation. The episode is called Favor For A Favor which underscores the plot of that episode tied into the rules of Charles Sun’s world. 
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<div id="attachment_44028" style="width: 776px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-44028" class="wp-image-44028 " src="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/the-brothers-sun-season-1-sam-song-li-justin-chien-998x570.jpg" alt="Creative Screenwriting Magazine " width="766" height="437" srcset="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/the-brothers-sun-season-1-sam-song-li-justin-chien-998x570.jpg 998w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/the-brothers-sun-season-1-sam-song-li-justin-chien-998x570-150x86.jpg 150w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/the-brothers-sun-season-1-sam-song-li-justin-chien-998x570-250x143.jpg 250w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/the-brothers-sun-season-1-sam-song-li-justin-chien-998x570-768x439.jpg 768w" sizes="(max-width: 766px) 100vw, 766px" />Bruce (SamSong Li) &amp; Charles Sun (Justin Chien) Photo courtesy of Netflix</div>
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<h3>Character Context</h3>
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Watching movies like Winter’s Bone, Where the Crawdads Sing, or Southern Comfort you see characters who are products of their world. They react and interact based contextually on how and where they’ve been raised. Sometimes, they’re products of their past &#8211; their backgrounds and what happened to them at a certain point in their lives.
A young man on Tatooine whose father was a legendary Jedi Knight will have grown up in a different world than a woman who becomes self-aware like in Lady Bird or CODA. 
Their context allows us to participate in what would be absurdities in another world. The characters are contextually suited to their roles, their journeys, and their environments.
Any war film shows men and women who have been changed by the environment and situation they’re in. Apocalypse Now details the deep-seated psychosis of both the Martin Sheen and Marlon Brando characters. Actions that might have been unthinkable before the war are now de rigueur during it. PTSD is well-documented in film and TV and forms the basis of many character interactions. The characters are in context to their past or present situations.
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<h3>Who Characters Are In Their Worlds</h3>
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Tangential to a previous subheading, a character’s normal world is important contextually to understand how and what the task and adventure they’re about to undertake will hamper or aid them &#8211; but who they are in that world is essential.
Attorneys, doctors, priests, etc. &#8211; any professional group &#8211; will have a fairly well-defined normal world. Cops fight crime. Nurses attend to the sick. A coach leads a team. Their day-to-day is mostly understood and not as much effort need go into explaining it.
The talented amateur character will have a different setup contextual to the adventure. North by Northwest features an in-control businessman who has to reach beyond his normal grasp to survive. You needs must give them an adventure commensurate with their skills which won’t be the same as someone who does this sort of thing daily.
In Ballers, the Duane Johnson character knows football as a star athlete would. But now, in his post-football career, he’s on a different tangent in the world of financial representation. Although the storylines do revolve around his football career, most of what he strives against is foreign to him. In fact, he’s bad at it having ruined his own and several others’ finances on an ill-advised investment. We meet him as retired ‘baller’ whose normal world isn’t football anymore. All his professional skills are out the window as he struggles to make a go as a retired athlete.
Alan Tudyk’s hilarious turn in Resident Alien shows an extra-terrestrial scientist who must fit in with people and a culture he doesn’t always understand.
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<h3>Backgrounds</h3>
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We are (or should be) always creating backstories for our characters. It tells a lot about where a character is when the story opens. There’s a reason for this and it mimics real life.
Film and TV technical adviser Sgt. Jeffrey Walker, L.A.S.D has worked all sides of law enforcement. He told me that in interviewing a suspect, trying to understand who they are based on where they come from is an important part of their job. He speaks to the person not the stereotype and to do that effectively he needs to get to know who he is interviewing.
One of the first jobs of any detective story is to ask why in order to put the crime in context. As these stories evolve, a picture of the backgrounds of the characters begins to form until it provides enough context to form conclusions.
No villain is arbitrary; there’s always a story contextual to the crime. No protagonist grabs us without some texture (context) and the comes from how they were shaped for the story we’re writing. Giving a character context always helps us to write dialogue and actions that make sense to that character.
<fieldset><legend>Series Navigation</legend><a href="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/what-is-contextual-writing-part-2/" title="What Is Contextual Writing? (Part 2) &gt;&gt;">What Is Contextual Writing? (Part 2) &gt;&gt;</a></fieldset>

What Is Contextual Writing? (Part 1)

<div class="seriesmeta">This entry is part 2 of 2 in the series <a href="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/Best Of 2020/exposition/" class="series-3944" title="Exposition">Exposition</a></div><div class="seriesbox"><div class="center"> <a href="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/Best Of 2020/exposition/" class="series-3944" title="Exposition">Exposition</a></div><ul class="serieslist-ul"><li class="serieslist-li"><a href="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/writing-exposition-to-make-your-script-pop-part-1/" title="Writing Exposition To Make Your Script Pop (Part 1)">Writing Exposition To Make Your Script Pop (Part 1)</a></li><li class="serieslist-li-current">Writing Exposition To Make Your Script Pop (Part 2)</li></ul></div><h3>Voiceover</h3>
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Despite being overused and used to shortcut actual writing voiceovers can be a powerful tool used properly. I ask my students to not use these, to work harder to get across their ideas, and invariably someone will bring up Casino or Goodfellows and my argument goes right out the window.
I will say that these movies are based on books and the character’s voice is an important part of the story. Bringing them to the screen involved an informed decision to use their voices as part of the exposition. Not many films require this.
Some use it tease situations. Arrival does with the Dr. Banks character (Amy Adams) talking to her future daughter even if we don’t know it at the time. This exposition sets up a powerful ending.
In Blade Runner, as the story goes, test audiences were confused by the world and needed voiceover to better understand and accept both the world and the main character so the studio added it in post production. The voiceover gives us exposition as to who/what is going on.
I may be one of the few fans of that original film who liked the V.O.  I thought it kept with the ‘future noir’ tone of the movie because V.O. was also often used in noir detective movies in the 40s and 50s. Plus, in keeping with topic of this article, it established that the character was world-weary and numb.
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From Blade Runner:
Deckard walks over to Chinese carry-out stand.
DECKARD 
Give me four. No, two, two, four. And noodles.
He sits.
DECKARD (V.O.) 
Sushi, that&#8217;s what my ex-wife called me. Cold fish.
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<h3>Texting, Podcasts, Radio, Etc.</h3>
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By now you should be getting the idea that any form of communication between your script and the audience is expository in nature.
Podcasts are not a two-way communication since most of the time they are listened to after they have been recorded. But your character listening to and responding to them is a solid way to give information.
A radio show can be both one-way or two way communication that can convey a lot to the audience in a comfortable and simple fashion.
Texting, emails, etc., in my classes, are formatted like dialogue &#8211; and really, they are just another form of dialogue.
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<h3>When To Exposit</h3>
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The biggest mistake most beginning writers make is revealing too much in inappropriate moments. Beginners don’t trust their writing or their audience and feel a compulsion to info dump, staticly, at the beginning of a script.
Now info dumps in and of themselves aren’t bad if handled with some insight and skill. My all-time favorite is in The Terminator when Reese (Michael Biehn) has just saved a freaked out Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) from certain death &#8211; the so-called disco scene.
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<div id="attachment_43497" style="width: 779px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-43497" class="wp-image-43497 " src="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/13f40026066cae65ff560eb7c5d733f0.jpg" alt="Creative Screenwriting Magazine" width="769" height="506" srcset="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/13f40026066cae65ff560eb7c5d733f0.jpg 3400w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/13f40026066cae65ff560eb7c5d733f0-150x99.jpg 150w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/13f40026066cae65ff560eb7c5d733f0-250x165.jpg 250w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/13f40026066cae65ff560eb7c5d733f0-768x506.jpg 768w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/13f40026066cae65ff560eb7c5d733f0-1024x675.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 769px) 100vw, 769px" />Kyle Reese (Michale Biehn) &amp; Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios</div>
Now, in a car, running from both The Terminator (Arnold Schwarzenegger) and the cops, while Sarah Conner (Linda Hamilton) is fighting to escape, Reese throws his arm across her body and says:
REESE 
I&#8217;m here to help you. 
Reese, Sergeant/Tech-Com, DN38416&#8230; 
Assigned to protect you. 
You&#8217;ve been targeted for termination.
~~ cut ~~
SARAH 
(hoarse whisper) 
This is a mistake. I haven&#8217;t done anything.
REESE 
No. But you will. It&#8217;s very important that you live.
Sarah closes her eyes, as if to shut it all out.
SARAH 
I can&#8217;t believe this is happening. 
How could than man get up after you&#8230;
Reese&#8217;s tone is equal parts hatred and respect as he replies.
REESE 
Not a man. A Terminator. 
Cyber Dynamics Model 101.
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Up to this point we have seen a lot or insane things, but practically nothing has been explained. James Cameron does exposition right by creating multiple questions that will be answered when appropriate. Now we’re hungry for this information and the exposition is perfectly placed.
In addition, it’s not just two people talking. The scene itself is intense. We may not even hear some of what Reese says because there is so much action in the scene. It’s amazing writing and smart filmmaking.
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<h3>Piece By Piece</h3>
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Related to the previous topic is the mystery where pieces of a puzzle are presented. Usually, if the script is well-written, the killer is revealed only at the end, and by then we don’t have any questions as to the whys and wherefores of the mystery. We’ve followed the detective (or whoever) along for a time and been given pieces of the mystery when appropriate. The fun part of writing these is you also need to create red-herrings &#8211; misdirections that are connected to the mystery but are mostly presented to draw your attention away from the actual killer so you get a lot to play with exposition-wise.
The greatest of these types of expository misdirections are in the many Sherlock Holmes stories. If the scriptwriter is following the books and stories and/or staying true to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s style, the pieces Watson provides are wholly wrong and meant to misdirect us. This is exposition that is essential to keep the story interesting and moving, and to keep the audience off-balance so they don’t have much time to think about the clues.
Some drawing room mysteries (also called tea cozies) have a big expository scene at the end. The recent Knives Out mysteries use this when Benoit Blanc, Daniel Craig’s character, reveals all in the end segment. Of course there are some twisty bits to keep it interesting.
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<div id="attachment_43502" style="width: 779px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-43502" class="wp-image-43502 " src="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/knives-out-daniel-craig.jpg" alt="Creative Screenwriting Magazine " width="769" height="404" srcset="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/knives-out-daniel-craig.jpg 1280w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/knives-out-daniel-craig-150x79.jpg 150w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/knives-out-daniel-craig-250x131.jpg 250w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/knives-out-daniel-craig-768x403.jpg 768w, https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/cswcms/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/knives-out-daniel-craig-1024x538.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 769px) 100vw, 769px" />Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) Knives Out. Photo courtesy of Lionsgate</div>
Death In Paradise takes this reveal segment to extremes: no crime is solved without all the suspects and cops gathered in a room while the lead detective reveals everything. In some episodes the team has to go gather clues (properly foreshadowed) to make the charges stick but the lead detective then gathers these pieces and makes his arrest only after doing the revelatory bits.
While you can’t really get away with this type of exposition in other than these tea cozy mysteries, they do have a long history of success because of the piece-by-piece approach to the investigation. Agatha Christie popularized them (and some say created them) and they’ve remained wildly popular since.
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<h3>Puzzle Pieces</h3>
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In Damages almost none of the first season is told linearly. It’s a piece then a disconnected piece to form a complete story. The insane Everything Everywhere All At Once takes this to new extremes. Don’t fight it, just enjoy as the story unrolls in several dimensions in several times &#8211; hence the title.
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<h3>Musical Chairs</h3>
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A rather good exposition scene is in Raiders of the Lost Ark. In the scene where the Army is coming to Indy to ask him about Ravenwood, we get a detailed explanation of what the Ark is and why it’s important. All the four characters contribute to the exposition making it very lively and never dull. The burden of the information is spread around.
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<h3>Musicals</h3>
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Speaking of music, musicals tell their stories in song. Whiplash, A Star Is Born, LA LA Land, The Greatest Showman, Cats”, etc. all have songs of longing, belonging, quests, etc. to explain something or someone and/ or further the storyline.
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<h3>No Exposition &#8211; Sorta</h3>
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I watched a movie recently called Fair Play. It was an intense drama that then turned very suspenseful as a couple who work together also have a romance. This is against company policy so they keep it hidden. The romance turns ugly as the story progresses.
What was striking about the way this was written was there almost zero exposition. The story developed without anyone bringing up the past and the writer explained almost nothing ahead of time. We learned as the characters were going through it.
It was impressive to see a situation evolve with no sidetrips of exposition to explain anything. It was set in today’s world and even though hedge-funds are opaque to most of us, the story never got bogged down in explaining that world. It was always clear what was going on in all cases because it was written so skillfully.
Very interesting technique.
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<h3>Tips For Good Exposition</h3>
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Learn how to be great at exposition by studying the many good examples out there. And be aware of the some of these tips for good exposition as you do:
<ol>
<li>Don’t make exposition long and tedious.</li>
<li>Drop it in proper amounts in the proper places.</li>
<li>Try to start at the latest point in any exposition and finish as early as possible.</li>
<li>Before relying on ‘tricks’ try to get information out naturally pacing the material properly when needed.</li>
<li>Don’t force exposition by making it obvious that you’re giving the reader information. Exposition should be organic to the moment and situation.</li>
<li>Less is more. How much really needs to be explained? Can the audience make the leaps with you in your story?</li>
<li>Look for ways to say the same thing in different manners. Can it be told visually?</li>
<li>If you have to have a long exposition scene move your characters around or put it in a place that’s interesting visually.</li>
<li>Spread exposition among several characters. Bounce the exposition between characters if possible.</li>
<li>Keeping in mind that we tend to over-explain, cut, cut, cut. You might write it long in 1st draft but don’t keep it that way once you better understand the story.</li>
</ol>
<fieldset><legend>Series Navigation</legend><a href="https://www.creativescreenwriting.com/writing-exposition-to-make-your-script-pop-part-1/" title="&lt;&lt; Writing Exposition To Make Your Script Pop (Part 1)">&lt;&lt; Writing Exposition To Make Your Script Pop (Part 1)</a></fieldset>

What Is Contextual Writing? (Part 2)

What Is Contextual Writing? (Part 1)

Writing Exposition To Make Your Script Pop (Part 2)

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