Lessons on Writing Killer Exposition From Stephen King's The Shining
Opening with character drama, foreshadowing powerful themes, and setting up Chekhov's gun to be fired
Writing exposition can be tricky, but it need not detract from a story. In fact, when done properly, exposition enhances a story.
Exposition answers the W questions: who, where, when, what, and why. I put “what” and “why” at the end because they are the least important for expository purposes. Exposition is necessary, yes, but it’s not a necessary evil. In fact exposition can grab the reader and bring them into the story.
Lessons from The Shining
One excellent example of exposition is the first chapter of Stephen King’s The Shining (1977).
King uses a combination of dialogue and in-story media to let the reader see what the setting looks and feels like, as well as the traits of the characters.
The main character, Jack Torrance, a struggling author, is meeting with Stuart Ullman, the on-site boss of the Overlook Hotel, about his new job overseeing the hotel during the winter. From the first sentence, you get the impression that Jack is a man who doesn’t like to be told what to do:
Jack Torrance thought: Officious little prick.
Stuart is portrayed as an uptight, pompous boss who would be no fun to work for. That’s coming from Jack’s perspective, and, as anyone who read the book knows, Stuart’s hesitations about hiring Jack would prove to be well-founded. From the start, the reader is set up to expect a confrontation between employer and employee.
Stuart only need to briefly mention Jack’s wife and son in order to establish that he has a family--a family who will be introduced in greater detail later.
“I asked if your wife fully understood what you would be taking on here. And there’s your son, of course.” He glanced at the application in front of him. “Daniel. Your wife isn’t a bit intimidated by the idea?”
Using In-Story Media
Then it is time to introduce the setting. Just less than a dozen paragraphs in, Stuart then pulls out the floor plans--essentially showing Jack and the readers a map of the hotel.
He brought back five large sheets and set them down on the glossy walnut plane of the desk. Jack stood by his shoulder, very much aware of the scent of Ullman’s cologne. All my men wear English Leather or they wear nothing at all came into his mind for no reason at all, and he had to clamp his tongue between his teeth to keep in a bray of laughter. Beyond the wall, faintly, came the sounds of the Overlook Hotel’s kitchen, gearing down from lunch.
“Top floor,” Ullman said briskly. “The attic. Absolutely nothing up there now but bric-a-brac. The Overlook has changed hands several times since World War II and it seems that each successive manager has put everything they don’t want up in the attic. I want rattraps and poison bait sowed around it. Some of the third-floor chambermaids say they have heard rustling noises. I don’t believe it, not for a moment, but there mustn’t even be that one-in-a-hundred chance that a single rat inhabits the Overlook Hotel.”
Jack, who suspected that every hotel in the world had a rat or two, held his tongue.
“Of course, you wouldn’t allow your son up in the attic under any circumstances.”
“No,” Jack said, and flashed the big PR smile again. Humiliating situation. Did this officious little prick actually think he would allow his son to goof around in a rattrap attic full of junk furniture and God knew what else?
A lot of information is packed in a few paragraphs:
The hotel is full of dark corners, foreshadowing its sinister nature.
The hotel had a long history--and contains the relics (and ghosts) of the past.
Frequent changes in ownership hint at unsavory or undesirable elements of the hotel.
There are the sounds of unknown beings inhabiting the hotel; are they rats or something far worse?
Jack sees Stuart as arrogant and intrusive.
Jack harbors insecurities about his abilities as a father.
Other key rooms within the hotel are introduced, including the Overlook Dining Room, the Colorado Lounge, and the boiler room. The basement, where the boiler room is housed, is “the most important level of all,” Jack points out. This sets the reader up for the drama that will later be caused by the boiler room.
Ostensibly, the employer and the new employee are sharing information about the new job, but almost everything that is said--especially those parts that are emphasized--is said for the sake of the reader.
Foreshadowing and Emphasizing Themes
Stuart points out how remote the hotel is and how the telephone lines usually go down in the heavy winter snows. He mentions how difficult it had been for the previous owners to turn a profit. Stuart and Jack get into a back-and-forth about Jack’s previous incidents of drinking and child endangerment. The themes of claustrophobia and madness are discussed.
The story of one previous caretaker, Grady, who “murdered [his] little girls with a hatchet, his wife with a shotgun, and himself the same way,” is told by Stuart as a cautionary parable.
Stanley Kubrick’s version of Jack resemble’s Grady’s story much more than it does the book’s version of Jack. (And Kubrick’s film is much better than King’s 1997 television mini-series. The book and film were both great, and a film doesn’t need to follow the source material exactly.)
Loading Your Guns
King heeds the rule of Chekhov’s gun to a tee throughout The Shining. In the first chapter, he loads dozens of guns and leaves them scattered around the property of the Overlook Hotel.
“It was Derwent who added the roque court I saw you admiring when you arrived.” [- Stuart]
“Roque?”
“A British forebear of our croquet, Mr. Torrance. Croquet is bastardized roque. According to legend, Derwent learned the game from his social secretary and fell completely in love with it. Our may be the finest roque court in America.”
“I wouldn’t doubt it,” Jack said gravely. A roque court, a topiary full of hedge animals out front, what next? A life-sized Uncle Wiggly game behind the equipment shed? He was getting very tired of Mr. Stuart Ullman, but he could see that Ullman wasn’t done. Ullman was going to have his say, every last word of it.
The allusions to such long-ago fancies as roque and topiary serve multiple purposes. They heighten the grandeur of the hotel and its storied past. But there’s something just a little bit creepy about hedge animals--both the kinds of people who would cultivate them and the hedges themselves. I mean, who knows, they might just... ...come to life.
The fact that King spends so much time on those two elements and that his main character circles back to them to remark on how they make him feel ill-at-ease is a telling sign that they will be important to the story. Or else, if they were not key elements to the story, then King would have been guilty of cocking the gun without firing it.
Ari Chase-Ramos is the author of more than two dozen erotic novellas on Kindle. He publishes serialized stories, essays, and interviews with authors and Substackers on his Substack and more on his Patreon. Need a cover designed for your next Kindle novella or Audible audiobook? You can hire Ari to do it! Commission his services as a cover designer, or commission a custom erotica to be written.
