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A common approach is to give the detail, but to disguise its significance. Mystery writers are masters of this. One trick is to insert the relevant detail in the middle of a long list. Readers ten...
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#3: Attribution notice added
by
System
·
2019-12-08T03:36:45Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/12336 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision
by
Dale Hartley Emery
·
2019-12-08T03:36:45Z (almost 5 years ago)
A common approach is to give the detail, but to disguise its significance. Mystery writers are masters of this. One trick is to insert the relevant detail in the middle of a long list. Readers tend to skim long lists. They read the first item and the second, and then skim to the last. So you can hide the clue in plain sight by writing it as the fourth item in a list of six or seven. Veteran mystery readers are onto this trick. But mostly you can get away with it. In general, study a few mysteries. Notice the moments where the sleuth has that nagging feeling of having missed some important detail. Later, when the sleuth remembers the detail, go back and find where it first appeared in the text. Notice how the writer disguised the significance of the detail, and how the viewpoint character noticed the detail but overlooked its importance.
#1: Imported from external source
by
System
·
2014-07-05T20:47:01Z (over 10 years ago)
Original score: 4