Nature Gives us Metaphors

I read Edith Wharton's guide, The Writing of Fiction, many years ago, and one of the few but lovely things I remember is her comparison of parts of a novel to a wave. She wrote, more eloquently, that exposition should be most of the wave with dialogue as its curling, dramatic peak. This worked in her fiction, though I might not choose the same balance. I'm not even sure she did, but her point was that dialogue gives the power, and perhaps should be used more sparingly than we might first thin...