workshop 4: March 2027

How to Show More Than Tell

A Workshop on Skilful Use of Exposition, Backstory and POV

A story is a completed process of change which has the ability to move readers’ feelings powerfully in whatever pleasurable or painful direction the writer chooses. But although the story arises out of and progresses through causality, and though the plot is driven by the wilful or unconscious desires of the principal characters who propel much of the narrative through their dialogue, stories do not come out of nowhere.  Exposition and backstory are necessary to reveal the world of the story and to provide the landscape through which your narrative travels.

As our stories do not come out of a void, there is much the reader needs to know about the time, setting, characters and past events in order to enjoy and make sense of the narrative. How can writers handle this mass of detail? Some storytellers write it on the nose: setting down facts about background, characters and events like a newspaper report. Others use awkward and unnatural contrivances. This workshop shows how exposition may be woven into the fabric of the story, so the reader is scarcely aware of being given essential information. The workshop will demonstrate how any writer can master the technique of revealing exposition and employing backstory to provide an authentic, three-dimensional feeling to the story.

The workshop will also cover Point of View (POV),  focussing on the five most common:  first person narrator/ protagonist; third person objective/omniscient/prescient, showing the type of story for which each POV may be most appropriate.

The workshop is meant to be participatory, interactive – and fun. There will be plenty of time for questions and group interaction in which story ideas are taken from various sources to create authentic but unobtrusive exposition and backstory.