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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/34309
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/34309
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

A story has to be interesting all the way through. There are many cases of authors withholding information that could be given earlier in order to create a big reveal later. But it has to be done in a way that does not make a big chunk of the story leading up to the reveal boring or frustrating.

The best tool that authors have for withholding information without making the rest of the story boring or frustrating is the manipulation of point of view. If you can tell as story from a point of view where the information in question cannot be seen, then you have successfully withheld that information from the reader.

The problem today is that so many writers are fixated on first person narrative. Rather than choosing the point of view that best suites the sort of story they want to tell, they decide on first person narrative before they decide on anything else. (This is often based on the entirely false notion that first person narrative is more intimate. The great thing about prose is that you can be as intimate or as distant as you like regardless of the narrative point of view.)

Given this fixation, we get all kinds of questions here which amount to "I have chosen to write in first person but I want to achieve some effect that is incompatible with writing in first person. What do I do."

The answer is: either don't write in first person or pick a different person.

Original score: 9