I had a playwriting instructor who had a great point of view about exposition. I'm paraphrasing: "Every line of dialogue is exposition. The purpose of any dialogue is to tell the audience something it doesn't know. It's your job as the writer to make that exposition interesting." And when you get down to it, it's true. Think about the purpose of scenes: To move the plot forward or build characterization. To move the plot forward, you have to tell the audience something it doesn't know. To build characterization, you have to tell the audience something it doesn't know. It's helped me immensely when approaching the quote-unquote exposition scenes since you really just have to write them as you would any other scene: Make the exposition interesting or deliver it a way that it doesn't seem/feel like exposition.

Zach excellent post, I agree! Hide the guilty person in plain sight-a wise producer once taught me that-and used the Sixth Sense as the example-he was dead the entire time-audience didn't see it. Andy was planning to escape the entire time-that scene about not only moves action but reminds them what has been in front of them the entire time-I love that because We the audience, is Red-and we want Andy to see that pacific blue with no memory...and we want to get busy livin or get busy dyin. Just brilliant, I concur!

It occurs to me that in the Andy-Red scene, Andy is telling Red what he needs to know. It just so happens that it's what we the audience need to know as well. It's exactly what Mamet is not talking about, as you point out, and a good clue for us in our writing.

@Zach, excellent choice to demonstrate exposition. One of my favourite movies, and one of my favourite scenes in it. It is an information dump, but a very well written one. That information could have been feathered in over a few scenes, but it would lose its impact. @Tracey - WHAT? Dead the whole time? Tony

@Tony--I deserved that.:)

All great stuff. And the touchstone question, "Is this scene in here for my/the writer's convenience?" is a script-saver. But what I love about this post is that it turned up for me something I hadn't seen before, what I'd call a "writer's delight" -- one of those tight clusters of words on the page that just make you smile, the moment you drop them into place on the page, because of how subtly layered with meaning and irony they are. The things that keep you writing. The darlings you dare not kill: RED: "Talking shitty pipedreams!" Genius.

This would be a great idea: analyse exposition scenes that work well.

What about therapy sessions for a PTSD patient (main character)? Those are revealing for a reason. Is that a crock of shit cop-out on exposition?

Silver linings playbook demonstrates that with Pat in the shrink's office and throughout the entire movie-Excelsior! Onward and upward!:)