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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/45640
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/45640
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

You can do it in exposition, but in general if I find a conversation that requires exposition or background to proceed, it is a signal that the writer is "rushing to drama". The solution is _previous_ scenes or exposition that accomplish delivering the proper context of the scene, and not immediately before the scene occurs. Probably in the first half of the first Act, where readers _expect_ extra exposition to set up the story. They will cut you some slack very early in the story, you just need a relevant reason for the narrator to be telling us about this.

In other words, by the time this crucial conversation occurs, the reader **should already know** whatever they need to know to follow the drama. It had to be revealed earlier. And the fact that is wasn't implies you are rushing to drama and not setting up the story well enough, you are trying to evoke both emotion and include a history lesson simultaneously, and that is nearly impossible to pull off.

Since you have included this unnatural exposition in the dialogue, it can't be too long; find a place or invent a scene or excuse for this background info to be reviewed by the MC earlier in the book. Somebody else brings up an event from the past, prompted by some current event; a friend or parent reports news of a marriage, or a death of some key figure in this invented event. In such circumstances, it is natural for the narrator to recap the thoughts of the MC about the background. Find some excuse. Invent a party, or a get-together, a marriage or funeral or anniversary celebration, a friend returns from a long trip, anything that is normally an occasion in which the past is reviewed.

Don't rush to drama; anytime you feel the urge to explain background in dialogue, or even in prose within or adjacent to dialogue, you should examine if there is **ANY** way you could have delivered the background information earlier in a more natural setting.

Original score: 6