Ammunition

Recently, Brandon Sneed posted a quote from writing guru Robert McKee on his website: “Convert exposition to ammunition.”

This is tremendous advice. Here’s what I think it means: Every story contains a certain amount of background information that somehow has to be worked in. Too often, writers do this in terribly unimaginative ways. Such as starting a section of the story this way: “John Quincy Smith was born in New Bedford, Massachusetts, on July 11, 1947….”

Right about then, I throw the magazine on the floor and fall asleep. In the middle of the night I get up to visit the restroom, slip on said magazine, bruise my sternum, suffer acute mental anguish, and sue the writer for damages.

Anyway, back to the McKee quote. Exposition to ammunition. The quickest way to do the conversion is to take what could be BACKSTORY — the character’s early life — and make it FRONTSTORY. That is, beginning at the beginning, and moving forward, and not looking back.

You could also leave out the backstory altogether. I admire writers who have the courage to do this.

Would anyone like to share an example — from your own work, or someone else’s — where something that could have been boring exposition was converted into narrative fireworks?