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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/45632
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

When my work was being critiqued, one of the critics said that the exposition given away in my dialogue was forced and unnatural. Though, this exposition is crucial, so leaving it out is out of the picture. The critic said it would be better to break the "show don't tell" rule by actually just giving the exposition straight up, no dialogue.

This does eliminate the chance of the exposition feeling unnatural in dialogue, but to me it feels cheap. The easy way out. And I also feel it takes the reader out of the experience. But without the information itself, the reader is not getting the full experience, nor is understanding/seeing the full picture.

Now, (this is opinion-based) I felt the exposition wasn't unnatural, due to the fact it was very relevant to the topic, and it seemed to me like something a person, and more importantly, the character in question would say in that situation. But is this **irrelevant**? Will **any exposition** given through dialogue feel **forced** and **unnatural**? Is it all better to just give it as **unfiltered**  **exposition** in a paragraph?

Original score: 11