Exposition Budget

What It Does

Measures the percentage of text in each scene that is "pure exposition" — paragraphs containing no dialogue, no action verbs, and no sensory language. Flags scenes that exceed 40% exposition.

Why It Matters

Exposition delivers necessary information — backstory, worldbuilding, character history — but it doesn't engage the reader's emotions the way dialogue, action, and sensory detail do. A scene that's 80% exposition is essentially a textbook chapter. Effective writers weave exposition into scenes that are also doing other work: a character explains the magic system while sprinting through a collapsing tunnel, or backstory emerges naturally through an argument.

What Gets Flagged

High Exposition Ratio

Severity: Information

Example (flagged):

Exposition budget: this scene is 65% pure exposition. Consider weaving information into dialogue or action.

Why: More than half the scene is delivered without any engaging elements (dialogue, action verbs, sensory words).

Suggested revision strategies:

• Convert exposition to dialogue (have a character explain instead of the narrator)
• Interleave with action beats (reveal backstory during a chase)
• Add sensory grounding (use the five senses while delivering information)
• Break into smaller units distributed across scenes

What Counts as "Not Exposition"

A paragraph is not counted as pure exposition if it contains any of:

• Dialogue (quotation marks)
• Action verbs (ran, grabbed, jumped, fought, etc.)
• Sensory language (from the sensory word lists)

Configuration

• Exposition threshold: 40% (configurable)

Technical Details

• Source: prose-craft
• Scope: Scene-level
• Method: Per-paragraph classification (exposition vs. engaged); ratio calculation per scene