‘The Bear’ and How to Not Exposition

Sometimes being a bit lost is the best way to enjoy a story.

Running a restaurant just looks miserable. Not as miserable as freelance writing, however, let’s not get crazy.

Exposition is frustrating for a lot of writers because it’s the easiest and most direct way to convey information to their audience. If Jack is angry, just saying Jack is angry is simple and direct: Three words and your audience knows exactly what you wanted them to know. So when they are told that the simplest and most direct way to convey information is the worst way, usually, to tell a story, it’s pretty normal to reject that advice¹.

The problem, of course, is that exposition usually strips your story of all life and fire, because you’re just lecturing. Jack is this, Jack does that. It’s boring. Sometimes you need to use exposition, yes—for every tool there is an appropriate use lurking in the distance². But most of the time, exposition is just the instant ramen of the writing game: Easy and flavorless. It’s almost always better to make your audience work for the story a bit. For an example of why this works so well, you can check out The Bear on Hulu.

The premise of the show is simple: Carmen ‘Carmy’ Berzatto (Jeremy Allen White) is a celebrated young chef who leaves his Michelin Star career to run his family’s old-fashioned sandwich joint in Chicago, The Original Beef of Chicagoland³, after his brother Mike (John Bernthal) commits suicide. Troubled and stressed, Carmy quickly discovers that the restaurant is as messed up as he is, which is saying something⁴.

It’s well done, and a fun glimpse into a world I know nothing about. Which is why its approach to exposition is ideal: It doesn’t use any. At all.

Say Fucking Hands

You cannot imagine my deep disappointment upon learning there is not an actual restaurant with this name.

I don’t know anything about running a restaurant or cooking or, well, just about anything, actually⁵. That there’s a deep and mysterious culture built up around professional kitchens in this world isn’t surprising, of course, but I’ve always regarded food like I’m in a video game: You scoop it up every now and then and ingest it so you don’t die⁶. I enjoy food, but I like to enjoy it with as little effort as possible. Left to my own devices, I’ll eat a steady diet of deconstructed sandwiches because I’m too lazy to actually get bread⁷.

The Bear drops you into the deep end. Almost from the first frame of the pilot, you are hit with the jargon and weird traditions of a professional kitchen. Everyone calls each other chef⁸. People shout things like “Fire!” or “Hands!” And that’s even before they start reciting recipes and talking about brunoising things. I literally have no idea what these folks are talking about for the first episode and half⁹.

And that’s good. First, it adds an air of mystery and depth to the show. I’ve never cared at all what happens in a restaurant kitchen as long as my meal shows up relatively hot and resembling something I might have ordered during a blackout, but by not spoon-feeding everything to me The Bear makes me want to know more. Second, it adds a good dose of verisimilitude, because in real life people do not explain things to each other they should already know. I do not, for example, begin conversations with The Duchess by saying “Well, as you know, we’ve been married for nineteen years and have five cats” because we both already know that¹⁰. So having a bunch of restaurant pros explaining their own jargon to each other would shatter the illusion and pull me right out of the story.

The Sauce is Broken

Eh, this is how I clean my own kitchen, so what.

Of course this only works because The Bear does find ways to explain this stuff without resorting to clumsy exposition. Because not using exposition isn’t the same thing as never explaining anything at all¹¹; stories are meant to be discovered, after all. The Bear uses a variety of techniques to explain all this cookery to a moron like myself. Sometimes it has a character simply tell another character something, as when Carmy explains why he calls everyone chef (it’s a sign of respect), which isn’t the same thing as exposition when it’s part of a natural conversation two people might reasonably have (expository conversations tend to begin with shit like ‘as you know’ and descend quickly into Wikipedian infodumps¹²). Sometimes it’s simply through repetition, or a sudden omission that allows you to observe the change. By the fourth episode or so you get the hang of it, and all without having to endure any five-minute monologues about a nightmare someone had where a chef is screaming hands and yet no server shows up to carry your plated food to the customer¹³.

Something else the show does that works is remember itself. Often writers are impatient to make their points, little and small, but The Bear has the patience to mention a broken sauce in a flashback and then wait a few beats before explaining what a broken sauce is without actually using the term broken sauce again. The audience has to pay attention for these techniques to work, of course; distrust of your audience is a prime driver of the shitty expository writing that plagues the world¹⁴. But it’s always better to give your audience that credit, because even if this audience isn’t ready, there are audiences to come, and you want to be ready for them.

Of course, I have the palate of a small lizard. I am the man for whom the phrase ‘tastes like chicken’ was invented. Of course I’m startled and confused by a show about people who think spending two hours cooking a meal is time well spent. I’m so lazy I won’t even put ice in my cocktails because it takes too long.

Next week: Stranger Things and the case of the too many side quests.

1. I have made an entire career out of rejecting sound advice, and look at me! On second thought, don’t look at me, I’m hideous.

2. For example, I have a tool in my closet that exists solely to support kitchen cabinets in the event that you are attempting to install them by yourself with no help. I have used it once. I will have it buried with me when I die.

3. This is an amazing name for a restaurant, and if I lived nearby I would order 3 times a day. Unfortunately, it’s fictional. Fortunately, it’s based on a very real place called The Original Mr. Beef On Orleans. Which means: ROAD TRIP. Who’s with me?

4. As a pathologically lazy man, I’ve never understood the drive to run your own business. All I see is people working 100 hours a week and netting like 20 grand a year.

5. I “cook” in the sense of heating things to an appropriate temperature, then pouring on salt. My wife likes to tell people I “cook” all our meals, but she’s just trying to make me look good. It’s been a lifelong project of hers.

6. If there was food you could walk over and be nourished by like in Wolfenstein 3D I might be tempted.

7. I’m that guy who will spend 3 hours researching and experimenting to create a “meal” out of a bottle of Parmesan cheese, some mustard, and a single grape rather than leave the house.

8. On a side note, “Yes, chef!” is now how I respond to everything The Duchess says, which drives her crazy in an adorable way.

9. To be fair, this isn’t unusual for me. Most of the conversations I’ve been in are just me nodding in confusion until suddenly I’m being punched in the face.

10. "As you know” dialog is a plague upon this earth. If you just finished a novel, do a quick search for that phrase and eliminate it. Or I will find you.

11. And sometimes you don’t want to explain something in any way for totally legitimate reasons. For example, I love me a good Noodle Incident.

12. Whenever The Duchess and I are sitting on the couch watching television, our cat Homer sits on my lap. And whenever I am sitting on the couch with Homer in my lap and I start explaining something to The Duchess, Homer will stand up, stretch, alk up my chest and shove his head into my mouth as if telling me to shut the hell up. And The Duchess thinks this is the greatest thing ever. And she is probably not wrong.

13. I wonder if you can use this knowledge for evil, like you’re sitting in a restaurant waiting for your food and you shout HANDS to get things rolling. I will experiment and report back.

14. Trust me: Having faith in your readers is the hardest thing a writer has to do.