Creating Compelling Exposition: Video Demo

A two-part, in-depth look at how Gillian Flynn establishes atmosphere through succinct, evocative, and unsettling descriptions of people and places in Sharp Objects

Intro

Last month, we looked at how Leigh Bardugo handles exposition in Ninth House. Bardugo’s approach is more rich in quantity of language, but never to the detriment of narrative drive. Gillian Flynn, on the other hand, uses tremendous restraint in her descriptions, but never at the expense of sensory experience.

These are two wildly different styles, but both are extremely effective. I’ve split the videos into two parts (for your sake, really) to explore how Gillian Flynn chooses details and language to describe people and places respectively to create the tone and atmosphere of the story. This is almost 45 minutes of material, but it was too interesting not to share all of it.