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Q&A Is it a bad habit to reveal most of the information still at the beginning of the story?

This is a habit I have with my stories, and I think it's a bad practice. The story I'm writing isn't of the suspense genre, it's a mix of fantasy and realistic fiction, but a bit of "I wonder what/...

2 answers  ·  posted 7y ago by Yuuza‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T06:12:32Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/27059
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by user avatar Yuuza‭ · 2019-12-08T06:12:32Z (almost 5 years ago)
This is a habit I have with my stories, and I think it's a bad practice. The story I'm writing isn't of the suspense genre, it's a mix of fantasy and realistic fiction, but a bit of "I wonder what/who/how would that be?", and showing the answers later on is never a bad thing (if well implemented).

I think I'm a plotter, and maybe a bit of a [pantser](https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/11/26) too. I write the core of the story, almost always already knowing the ending, and then I write excerpts describing every idea I have as soon as they come to my mind. I only start writing the story at full when I've established enough ideas, so I can let the events happen and the characters act for themselves.

However, in my case, this process leaves all details exposed, most of the time right at the beginning (but not in an info-dump). Little to no important information remains to reveal later. In my opinion, a story with no surprises and no suspense and no mystery, that just reveals everything the reader wants to know right away, is just plain boring.

But I also don't know if it's just the way I structure it, or if it's simply just bad writing. Should I cover what is uncovered? Should I leave the revelation of some information to later chapters? Should I trick the characters?

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2017-03-07T09:02:39Z (over 7 years ago)
Original score: 3