Also review Chapter 5 from Video Game Storytelling that describes the exposition or “set-up” of your story. Exposition is the minimum and critical information the audience needs to know to make sense of a scene in your story as it unfolds. Exposition is best relayed via actions of the characters–something happened that shows us the conflict, or details of the scene that provide hints of setting, time, situation, culture etc.
Also remember the three kinds of information critical in a scene:
- Need to Know: As you’d expect, this is a fact that the audience needs to know right now, before they can be satisfyingly entertained by what they are about to experience.-
- They know the town is the happiest town in all the lands and never faces real problems. Robbers come to the town and start causing a ruckus.
- Could Wait: A fact that, while potentially very important, is not necessary for the audience to understand at the current time. It can (and in many cases should) wait, until it becomes a Need to Know.
- They don’t know the robbers come back years later to get their revenge. The audience finds out after the flash back.
- Incidental: A fact that is relatively unimportant and will remain so throughout the story. While it may add color or characterization, its removal would have little to no harmful effect on the audience’s enjoyment of the experience. Therefore it’s a candidate for being cut if necessary.
- They don’t know that the main robber was the guy the mayor beat in his election back in the day. He was destined to win and it seemed like he would in the polls, but the mayor ended up getting more votes in the end. He left town to plot his revenge on Neckville.