https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyqaSpeIht8

watching this video on exposition in Doctor Who reminded me of a problem that I frequently run into when I try to write anything, and that’s this:

it is definitely Bad to stop the pacing of the story in order to have a character just infodump about what’s happening

but, I also hate the trope of characters refusing to explain what they know for contrived reasons. like “I think you should see this for yourself” type shit, or the even worse “no time to explain” (if you have time to say those four words you have time to at least give a high-level summary of what’s going on)

but this means that every character needs to fit into one of these categories:

1. they don’t know what’s going on, or have only a small piece of the picture
2. they do know what’s going on but won’t tell the protagonist (this can be icky. I don’t like this - especially when it’s overused like in KOTOR2)

since I don’t like category 2, that only leaves category 1. which means that I can only tell stories that are mysteries? I’m definitely missing something - idk

but yeah one of my pet peeves in storytelling is when a character could tell the protagonist important information but they don’t because it’s more Dramatic™ that way