Differentiating between exposition & character experience

Re: 3rd person: what is the difference between 1st person telling us their feelings and 3rd person feeling etc (both expos?)@AidanFritz

What (if any) is the relationship between interior monologue and exposition?@destigarribia

Are there certain POVs that lend themselves to use of exposition more than other, as in exposition that is well done?
@akimoku

Okay, we know now that dialog is not exposition, right? Dialog is part the character’s experience of the scene, while exposition is about what the narrator knows that they think the reader should know, even though the reader can’t get that from being in this scene.

Interior monologue is a type of dialog. So the distinction is the same: when you jump into interior monologue, you jump into scene, not exposition. Even if they’re exactly the same words. Interior monologue is simply cast in italics, with or without an interior monologue tag—this nice little convention makes interior monologue tags like “she thought” not just cliche, but totally extraneous. (She wanted to reach out and grab it. But her hand didn’t want to. She wanted to reach out and grab it. But her hand didn’t want to.)

The issue here is really the difference—not between scene and exposition—but between showing the character’s experience of the scene internally and showing the external scene. The truth is, readers prefer to be shown externally. That way they feel like they’re standing next to the character having their own thoughts and feelings instead of squashed into the character’s head alongside them. (Her fingers twitched. It lay close, gleaming in the light of sunset. Her fingers stretched toward it, her hand heavy on the table.)

Quick lesson here: Raymond Chandler even cheated in this direction, refusing to give us Marlowe’s internal monologue in most cases and forcing us to rely instead on what Marlowe said and did and what he could see and hear in each scene. The result is intensely vivid. That’s why everyone loves Phillip Marlowe.

Is there a fine line between internal monologue in the close 3rd person POV or omniscient POV and the writer’s exposition?

YES.

It can be difficult and possibly not even worth it to try to sort out the very strands of which is which. (He knew there was a reason. He knew there was a reason. He knew there was a reason.)

So it’s safest just to remember that the closer you stick to the external aspects of scenes—dialog and action—the more vivid your story is. (He put his hand over his mouth. “I knew there was a reason.”)

Are feelings exposition?

NO.

Feelings, again, are the character’s experience, not the narrator’s. And, remember, it’s far, far stronger to show how your characters reveal their feelings in their actions and dialog than it is try to show it in internal monologue, “Hey, this guy’s got feelings.” (His heart hurt so bad he thought he was going to die. He put his hand on his chest, over the cold slicing inside.)

Unless you’re going to make like Nathaniel Hawthorne and insert your own feelings into your story for no reason whatsoever (“Familiar as it stands in the writer’s recollection,—for it has been an object of curiosity with him from boyhood. . .”). . .

Yeah, uh. Way to go, Nathaniel.

Nobody cares how you feel.