Using questions in dialog to facilitate exposition
What are the guidelines on using questions in dialog (between ignorant characters) to expose setting and backstory?
A few exchanges between my characters seem to fall flat. I'm trying to sort out why. I've used a few chunks of dialog in my story to bring in important details. (I used dialog ... because I knew to avoid info dumps.)
One beta reader said something along these lines, too, about some of the dialog seeming to be misused for the sole purpose of exposition.
As I stare at it, I think it's specifically the questions within the dialog. I think those are at odds with the characters. I think the characters, as I've built them, would not be so inquisitive.
I'm wondering what the guidelines are for using questions (and answers) in dialog as a means to expose information.
If this is too broad let me know and I can try to focus in.
Example: Imagine a character on the run, leaving his home in Big City. He takes a new identity and goes to Small Town. He claims to be from Different Big City.
People in Small Town are suspicious. They drill in, asking him questions about his past. He tries to keep his story straight, he tries to ask them questions too, because he doesn't know why they would care in the first place. They have their reasons.
^ using this set up, secrets and suspicions on both sides, I introduce world-building information over a couple chapters (about Big City, Different Big City, and Small Town). I thought it worked in the early drafts, but now I'm editing for flow again (after revisions to heighten tension throughout) and these chunks feel flat. The below gives you sense of the basic structure of this sort of dialog chunk ... which in my actual story would be embellished with details and setting to sound less horrible and more natural.
Small Towner said, "Why do you say you're from Different Big City?"
Guy on the run responded, "We agreed to drop that. Why should it matter?"
Small Towner said, "It matters because (world building detail.)"
If I cut it, i lose the world building detail, which the reader needs. I think maybe Guy on the run wouldn't open himself to the conversation. He wouldn't ask 'why should it matter.' Not sure. And probably the last bit is too on the nose, but not sure where to go with that problem.
Second edit: Using a combination of suggestions here, it is improving, flowing more naturally, and characterization is deepening. Thank yous all around.
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I don't know about any guidelines, but I agree that in your example the main character's reaction seems off.
If you're trying to shake off someone who's already suspicious, saying "stop asking!" and "why do you care?" seems like exactly the wrong way to go about it. Either of these seem like they would increase suspicion and make the questioner more likely to continue asking questions you'd rather not answer.
From personal experience, when I'm lying about something, I will not only try to steer the conversation away from that topic, but I will also actively avoid asking any questions that invite counter questions on the topic I'm desperately trying to avoid.
So yes, unless your MC is a bad liar, I would have him try to avoid such blatant red flags when talking to others. Depending on the importance of keeping a low profile, he could even try to avoid the particularly nosy people entirely.
However, it should be possible to bring up the world building conversation topics without having the MC ask for it themselves. Here are a few suggestions:
Option A: The nosy questioner directly confronts the MC:
"Look, I know you're not from Different Big City because ..."
Option B: When the MC tries to awkwardly change the topic, the questioner could give their reasons without being prompted by the MC:
"You need to answer these questions because ..."
Option C: Introduce another character who doesn't care about the MC's past (maybe because they have secrets of their own) as someone who the MC could ask these questions naturally without being worried about counter questions.
Main Character: "I don't understand why it matters to them."
Other Character: "It matters because ..."
Option D: The MC could witness two or more other characters discussing something relaying the world building information, possibly brought on by his weird behavior.
All of these suggestions assume you need to bring across the information in a direct conversation. There are less direct ways (as pointed out by Amadeus), and you should probably mix and match.
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Exposition as dialogue is a good way to keep the story moving forward, but only if it still makes sense as dialogue. You can't have two senators discussing the name of the state's capital, but you might be able to sneak it into a discussion they're having about a recent gerrymandering ruling.
In your example "Why do you say you're from Different Big City?" seems like an odd question. If they accepted GotR's explanation of where he's from they are more likely to have asked typical follow up questions related to the place or, in your sketched scenario, give them a mysterious warning to the effect that they don't want to advertise that fact. If they didn't believe that he was from Different Big City they're essentially asking "Why are you lying?" which doesn't always work with close friends never mind suspicious casual acquaintances.
Maybe your fleshed out version makes perfect sense, but my best guess is that the dialogue doesn't have a purpose beyond providing your exposition (can you give it one? Is this something the readers would care about?) and/or doesn't make sense for the characters in that situation.
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I'm not sure if I am interpreting this correctly, but I would not "mix" character questions with explanatory exposition (or answers in exposition), and I wouldn't make characters too "ignorant," that sounds too "convenient."
A difficult aspect of world-building is to use it and NOT write about it. Sure, I laid out my world, with twenty cities focused on different aspects of commerce. But it turns out my story needs seven of them, and very little needs to be said. Lumber comes from Pickford, that's true, Marble from Ansley, but how far Ansley is from Pickford or how to navigate that distance never matters, really. It's six hundred miles and requires travel on two rivers, but no character ever needed to know that, so it isn't in there.
To me a better solution is knowledgeable characters, in conflict:
"We'll just cart it to Binton and put it on a barge. I priced it in."
"What were you smoking, Jack?" Andy asked, laughing. "You can't put a hundred ton barge on Juvala, it's barely a creek. You'll drag bottom. You need five barges, and you'll be paying five crews, at least until you reach halfway, about Morristown. Did you price that in?"
Jack winced. "No."
"Well, you can cart it across Juvala, another fifty miles to Markham and barge it there, that's likely cheaper. but at the bottom you'll have to cart it back to Santos on the coast road."
"What's that, a hundred miles of carting? What does that cost?"
"I don't know," Andy said, "Go ask Philip."
Another option is mental imagery in a character.
"We're coming from Alvatown," the man said.
Images of Alvatown rose in Bill's mind, the seashore and long docks, the iron ships, the seemingly thousands of hard sailors in gritty bars seeking alcohol and affordable accommodating women, in equal measure. A town where anything could be had for the right coin.
When things fall flat, it is typically for lack of conflict. Create some. Even in exposition; for me, my exposition is done with my POV character in mind. I want to talk about the stone altars of the Ancients (something like our pyramids):
The altar stood a hundred feet tall, built of hundreds of closely fitted granite blocks, Gracie heard they weighed fifteen and twenty tons each. A lot of people saw these fantastic works as a testament to the ingenuity of man, a lost art of stone carving, seen with awe.
She didn't buy it, she saw twenty thousand people in slavery, whipped into back-breaking and lethal labor to satisfy the ego of some psychopathic nut job that thought he could buy immortality. She saw a hundred foot tall pointlessly meticulous monument to the cruelty of absolute power. It wasn't awesome, it was disgusting. The only thing worth praying at this altar was that the man that built it died screaming.
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