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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/29787
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/29787
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

I don't think you have a point of view problem, I think you have a storytelling problem. You are trying to introduce a character without introducing them, identify them without identifying them.

You are doing this because you are planning a surprise for the reader. Fine, you can certainly surprise the reader, though I think many writers grossly overestimate the reader's appetite for surprise. But you are trying to do it artificially by withholding from the reader information that they would have if they were naturally experiencing the events of the story for themselves.

This is artificial surprise, and it does not work. You are effectively making one of your characters walk around with a paper bag over their head just so you can whip it off at a critical juncture and yell "surprise!" Readers will stand for that in fiction just about as long as they would stand for it in real life.

If you are going to surprise the reader, it ought to be a natural surprise, that is, something that would surprise them if they were actually living the events of the story themselves.

Original score: 8