Blog: The Talking Heads of Exposition

Do you use Talking Heads? Do you even know what they are? I’m not referring to the band of the same name.

In writing, the term “talking heads” refers to a group of people who sit around and talk without doing anything else. Talking heads are a device used by writers to connect with readers without breaking the fourth wall. Writers use talking heads to explain particularly difficult subjects (like breaking down a complicated scientific premise for the non-scientist reader), to expound on character or world backgrounds, or to set up a particular gag or dramatic situation which will be important later in the novel.

“Talking heads” doesn’t have to refer to a group of people, though. The term can refer to a protagonist monologue or a narrative introduction to a story, such as the opening theme to the Nickelodeon cartoon Avatar: The Last Airbender. “Water… Earth… Fire… Air. Long ago, the four nations lived together in harmony. Then everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked. Only the Avatar, master of all four elements, could stop them. But when the world needed him most, he vanished. A hundred years passed and my brother and I discovered the new Avatar, an airbender named Aang. And although his airbending skills are great, he still has a lot to learn before he’s ready to save anyone. But I believe Aang can save the world.” In this case, the talking head is short, sweet, to the point, and actually enhances the viewing experience because the show’s writers did not have to waste time within the cartoon setting up the situation. All they had to do was play on the intro by showing the conflict in question.

It would be wrong to say that only new writers use talking heads to get through particularly difficult scenes, but new or inexperienced writers are often the ones who misuse the technique, and use it more often than it should be used.

Some bad examples I’ve recently noticed include the fantasy webcomic Gaia (which I otherwise enjoy reading), where the author chose to explain his world’s origin of magic by having his main character, Ilias, read an old elementary school paper he wrote on the subject. While webcomics are a different medium than prose, this is still a really bad use of page space. There are other ways this information could have been disseminated to the reader while still maintaining the flow and action of the comic. The two weeks it took Ilias to read his paper to us, the comic reader, the comic author potentially lost a lot of bored readers who weren’t patient enough to wait for the payoff. And the fact that there really hasn’t been a payoff of that two week interregnum only makes it more unlikely readers will stick with the comic in the long term.

Another bad example would be the Japanese anime, Deadman Wonderland. The viewers are introduced to the series by fifteen minutes of exposition where three high school students (including our protagonist) talk about a great sinkhole in Tokyo that caused everyone to move away, and the amusement park Deadman Wonderland that has replaced it. Which, conveniently, they are all going to visit the very next day on a field trip. None of them make it there, except the protagonist, though. Because a horrible event happens which finally starts the story. Fortunately, the series picks up from there, but Japanese anime and manga are some of the worst offenders when it comes to overuse of talking heads and flashbacks.

The television series The West Wing was a great over-user of the talking heads technique. In almost every episode the characters would sit around a room complaining about this senator, that journalist, or discussing XYZ situation and what to do about it. Except in this case, it wasn’t really a misuse of talking heads because the entire show was built to showcase the talking heads. Additionally, actors were picked for the show who could actually take the talking heads moment and showcase emotions, reactions, and body language habits that moved the plot forward. Because we found the actors so entertaining, and because the plot actually did move in those moments, the talking heads vanished, turning the moment into an actual scene worth experiencing.

Another offender of this technique is author David Weber, of the Honor Harrington series. I have noticed of late (and should have noticed sooner) that a good 75% of his books involve groups of people from various “countries” getting together and discussing either things that happened offstage or planning things that will happen offstage. All of this he uses to build up to the two or three action scenes that actually occur during his novels. This is an egregious use of talking heads. Weber gets away with it, however, due to the quality of his writing, and the fact that he is a published author who is selling his books by the thousands.

To be honest, Weber is one of my current favorites. So I give him a lot of latitude when it comes to his use of talking heads. But if I’m not a fan of an author, or just getting introduced to an author’s work, talking heads just turns me off. It turns off a lot of people, readers and editors alike, because most people just don’t know how to use it well. Overall, the use of talking heads is a cheat to get around the fact that the writer has no idea how to properly include this information within the book. Writers forget that not all world-building information must be in the book. They also forget that there are ways to include the information in the book by the use of action.

It is boring if you have a group of people sitting around discussing the legality of insulting the Emperor’s clothes, and the punishments involved to the offenders. But if your protagonist (or her friend) is arrested in a public and humiliating way because she insulted the Emperor’s clothes, this is much more entertaining and tells the readers all they need to know about this particular law. It also gives you, as the writer, a new plot hook to dangle the protagonist from and get the story moving.

So think before you “talk.” And if you need to write the talking heads just to get through the scene, that’s okay. As long as you go back and fix it before the final draft. Talking heads should be kept at an absolute minimum.

Unless you’re David Weber.