Not expanding asterisk by shell - excluding paths from find - bash

Question

I don't code in Bash daily. I'm trying to implement small functionality: user define an array of directories or files to omit in find command. Unfortunately I have a problem with expanding asterisk and other meta-characters by shell (* is expanded during concatenation). My code is:
excluded=( "subdirectory/a/*"
"subdirectory/b/*"
)
cnt=0
for i in "${excluded[#]}"; do
directories="$directories ! -path \"./${excluded[$cnt]}\""
cnt=$(($cnt+1))
done
echo "$directories"
for i in $(find . -type f -name "*.txt" $directories); do
new_path=$(echo "$i"|sed "s/\.\//..\/up\//g")
echo $new_path
done
Unfortunately, I still see excluded directories in results.
EDIT:
This is not duplicate of existing question. I don't ask you how to exclude directories in find. I have a problem with expanding meta-characters like "*" by passing variables to find command. E.g I have almost working solution below:
excluded=( "subdirectory/a/*"
"subdirectory/b/*"
)
cnt=0
for i in "${excluded[#]}"; do
directories="$directories ! -path ./${excluded[$cnt]}"
cnt=$(($cnt+1))
done
echo "$directories"
for i in $(find . -type f -name "*.txt" $directories); do
new_path=$(echo "$i"|sed "s/\.\//..\/up\//g")
echo $new_path
done
It works, but problem is when e.g directory c contains more than one file. In such case, asterisk sign is replaced by full file paths. Consequently I have an error:
find: paths must precede expression: ./subdirectory/c/fgo.txt
Usage: find [-H] [-L] [-P] [-Olevel] [-D help|tree|search|stat|rates|opt|exec] [path...] [expression]
Why? Because asterisk sgin has been expanded to full file name:
! -path ./subdirectory/a/aaa.txt ! -path ./subdirectory/b/dfdji.txt ! -path ./subdirectory/c/asd.txt ./subdirectory/c/fgo.txt
My question is: how to avoid such situation?

Answer 1

You'll want to use the -prune switch in find.
Here's an example (I found this on stackoverflow itself)
find . -type d \( -path dir1 -o -path dir2 -o -path dir3 \) -prune -o -print
This omits, dir1, dir2, dir3.
Source: https://stackoverflow.com/a/4210072/1220089

Answer 2

My initial thought is to use double quotes to prevent the expansion:
for i in $(find . -type f -name "*.txt" "$directories" | sed 's#\./#\.\./up/#g'); do
but this of course fails. You can accomplish the same effect with (untested):
pre='! -path'
excluded=( "$pre subdirectory/a/*"
"$pre subdirectory/b/*"
)
for i in $(find . -type f -name "*.txt" "${excluded[#]}" | sed ...); do