Great Expositional Dialogue
A case study from Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Expositional dialogue can be defined as two or more characters exchanging information that’s crucial to the narrative. It can either be done really poorly or really well.
Here’s an example of bad expositional dialogue:
Setting: in a living room
Man: “We were engaged once, weren’t we?” (spoken unironically)
Woman: “Three whole weeks.”
Man: “Good old college days.”
Woman: “But you were the one that called off the engagement, remember?”
Yikes. (Find more bad examples here)
The writer wants the audience to know that this man and woman have a history together, but they convey this information in an unnatural, on-the-nose way.
The right way to do expositional dialogue
As bad as it can get, expositional dialogue remains necessary and important because characters need to exchange information and thereby educate the reader about the world of the narrative. However, it needs to be more natural.
For expositional dialogue to become natural, it must be enmeshed the drama of the story.
For example, at the beginning of Aliens, Ripley wakes up in the hospital ward of a space station, and she and the audience immediately have three questions:
- Where is the space station located?
- How did she wind up there?
- How long has she been unconscious?
When Carter Burke explains everything to her, there’s nothing ham-fisted about how he conveys the information.
So what makes their dialogue natural and the engagement dialogue unnatural?
It all comes down to what characters know. In the engagement conversation, the man and woman are regurgitating information that both parties already know–neither character gains any new insight into their relationship.
However, in Burke and Ripley’s conversation, Burke is revealing new information to Ripley thereby intriguing her and intriguing viewers.
But good expositional dialogue doesn’t stop there. Burke continues and drops the bombshell revelation that Ripley has been floating in space for 57 years which propels the story forward.
Ultimately, good expositional dialogue does two things
- Conveys previously unknown information
- Progresses the story by raising the stakes and causing the audience ask: with this information, will the character do next?
Another example of great expositional dialogue from Harry Potter
I was watching the Half-Blood Prince the other night and was struck by the masterful dialogue JKR constructed throughout the story, especially in the scene between Slughorn and Tom Riddle:
Riddle: I was in the library last night, in the Restricted Section, and I read something rather odd about a bit of rare magic. It’s called as I understand it Horcrux.
Slughorn: I beg your pardon
Riddle: Horcrux I came across the term while reading and I didn’t fully understand it
Slughorn: I’m not sure what you were reading Tom, but this is very dark stuff very dark indeed
Riddle: Which is why I came to you
Slughorn: A horcrux is an object in which a person has concealed part of their soul
Riddle: But I don’t understand how that works
Slughorn: It splits one soul and hide part of it in an object by doing so you are protected should you be attacked and your body destroyed protected and part of your soul that is hidden lives on in other words you cannot die.
Riddle: Can you only split the soul once? For instance, seven?
Slughorn: Merlin’s beard Tom. Isn’t it bad enough to consider killing one person? To rip the soul into seven pieces. This is all hypothetical isn’t it Tom? All academic?
Harry then emerges from the pensive and speaks with Dumbledore about what to do next.
The entire conversation is expositional, but let’s consider what JKR does to make the conversation sound natural and progress the story.
It’s a memory within the pensive
Since the Goblet of Fire, JKR has trained her audience to anticipate game-changing information whenever Harry enters the pensive and this memory is no different.
In fact, we expect this memory to be extra special because, at the beginning of the film, Dumbledore has already shown Harry a tampered version of the memory, but it’s warped and distorted which only heightens our interest as we watch the unedited memory.
By withholding information, JKR engenders questions within her audience so that by the time Slughorn and Riddle do exchange the information, we know it’s important.
Who’s doing the talking?
VOLDEMORT.
Well–the Tom Riddle version of him. Nonetheless, a form of Voldemort is the one asking the questions and exchanging information. That’s significant because it cues viewers to know that this information is crucial.
Instead of having Voldemort speaking, JKR could have easily had Hermoine dig up the definition of a horcrux in the library. For example:
Hermoine looked at Harry and Ron grimly. “A horcrux splits the person’s soul and allows them to live after they die,” she said. “Voldemort mentioned he had seven. Destroy the horcruxes, destroy Voldemort.”
Ugh. Boring. We’ve seen Hermoine do that a million times.
Instead, we watch as Riddle methodically works Slughorn to extract this information. It’s a simple shift, but Rowling’s decision to depict Voldemort’s exchange heightens our interest in the scene in a way no other character could.
It reveals so much about several characters
Dumbledore
Half-Blood Prince shows Dumbledore at his weakest, not only physically (the black hand) but mentally as well; Dumbledore, the greatest wizard of the age, is unable to retrieve the information and requires Harry’s help–when have we ever seen him at such a loss?
It’s not a knock against the headmaster, but a signifier of Dumbledore’s humanity, how skilled Voldemort is, and Harry’s maturation.
Riddle
Fans of Harry Potter constantly wondered: how could Tom Riddle go to Hogwarts and gain such a huge following as one of the most feared dark wizards? How could the professors not foresee the evil he would become?
We get a glimpse of how in this conversation. Riddle leverages Slughorn’s trust, flattery, and rhetoric (i.e. referring to the horcrux as merely a “term”) to extract information from him.
This conversation shows us young Riddle’s unique blend of manipulation, and calculation, tenacity, and intelligence.
Slughorn
Finally, this scene reveals Slughorn’s biggest regret. In previous interactions, Slughorn snaps when Harry uses Voldemort’s name.
Why does he do that?
Because he was the first person to enlighten Riddle about horcruxes. As a result, he holds himself solely responsible for the creation of Voldemort and by extension, the deaths of Voldemort’s victims.
Lily
One such victim was none other than Lily Potter, Harry’s mother and one of Slughorn’s “prized” students. Before giving Harry his memory of Tom, Slughorn recalls the beautiful gift she gave him and speaks to her grace, beauty, and talent.
Although Lily isn’t mentioned in the dialogue, she’s still tied to these events, and Rowling uses the rare glimpse of her to subtly recapture and reengage the reader’s attention before diving into Slughorn and Riddle’s exchange.
The dialogue provides a MASSIVE payoff
Finally, this interaction is not only the payoff for the second-to-last act of Half-Blood Prince, but the payoff for the entire series up to this point. It answers a question we’ve been asking ourselves since Hagrid first told Harry that Voldemort would return in Diagon Alley:
How the HELL was Voldemort able to come back? With that knowledge, the stage is set for the final book.
Conclusion
Through these elements, Rowling crafted something which exceeds the requirements for good expositional dialogue. She elevated the conversation from a mere information dump to a brilliant character study and a catalyst not only for the next act of Half-Blood Prince, but the endgame of the entire series.
