Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
If you have ever used a lawnmower, you know that the taller the grass,
the more slowly you need to push the mower. Or it will choke.
If you have ever used a snowblower, you know that the higher the snow
level, the more slowly you need to push the blower. Or it will choke.
If you've ever fed baby food to an infant, you know that you can only
place food into the child's mouth at a certain pace. Or he will choke.
What all three of these examples have in common is a processing device
of some kind; something that chews or mashes through incoming materi-
al. Similarly, the human brain processes—chews and mashes
through—incoming exposition, and if it's force-fed at too high a pace, the
brain “chokes.” It either misses many of your story points or gets frustrated
and gives up on your story entirely.
So spreading out your exposition, like seeding a lawn, is vital to avoiding
overwhelming the audience with information at any given point. And the
most important place to avoid exposition overload is in the place your
story can least afford to test an audience's patience: at the very beginning.
Yet the opening of a story is where the novice writer most often tends to
make this potentially story-killing mistake: a massive exposition dump on
the audience.
Of course, it's not hard to understand why. The writer has so much he
thinks the audience needs to know before the story can get going: char-
acters, relationships, a world, a conflict—it's a lot to cover! The writer is
convinced that the story will be confusing and unclear unless all this in-
formation is presented up front. “Just bear with me for a while, and once
we get past this tangle of people, places, things, and situations, trust me, it
will get good—”
But the audience is already gone. Either physically, or just checked out
of the story and focused on other elements.
A Snake in the Grass Seed
A notorious and painful example of front-loading reams of exposition can
be found in the classic stealth action shooter
Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of
Liberty
. If you haven't played the game, you should be able to easily find a
walkthrough video online. I recommend watching at least the first ten
minutes.
