How to best pace information reveals to the reader
Some of my beta comments fall under the category of 'I the reader am frustrated by what I do not know' - and I've gotten this comment in my real life group too.
The reader wants information as soon as a question comes to mind for them. In my real life group I don't worry too much, the nature of the critique is fragmented, many excerpts, we can't remember previous chapters from weeks ago, etc.
But the beta comments have the same concern. They want to know everything, as soon as the question comes to mind, as though they are uncomfortable wondering. They want to not be asked to wait.
Popular Examples of what I'm talking about:
Owls are trying to delver a letter to Harry. Why? We don't find out for a while.
The ring of power makes a person invisible and eventually eats their soul. Why?
R2-D2 has a hologram of a beautiful princess and it's supposed to go to a crazy man in the desert. Why?
Why do my betas ask for the answers to these sorts of questions 'right away' (or even more oddly, before the strange event even happens)? I think I pace the reveals properly, based on my own reading enjoyment. I have tried to make the story enjoyable (rich setting etc). I don't know whether to ...
reorganize paragraphs so they get answers before they ask questions, but this seems like it would reduce tension.
obscure the odd events, so the reader is less aware of holding the question in mind. This seems even worse than #1.
Maybe my beta readers are simply impatient people who normally gravitate towards other styles of books. ??
Maybe the reveal pacing is perfect, but other elements in my writing keep the space between question and reveal too un-enjoyable.
I'm very puzzled by it. Perhaps the beta read process has its own shortcomings. Any thoughts you have on the above are most welcome. (I see odd events with future reveal to be an important aspect of tension. I'd like to not lose tension.)
To focus the question: What are the best methods to pace and reveal story plot points?
Fake example, written on the fly:
Natasha raced up to the house. Fumbling, she pulled out her key chain. Damn. Damn damn damn. The wand's inside. She jiggles the key into the lock. She tries to turn it.
Nothing. She pulls the key out, it's the right one. She tries again. No luck. It's the right key. She tries the others, naturally they don't work, either.
It's at this point that my beta is commenting, "I want to know why the key doesn't work."
(then there's ~two paragraphs of Natasha pulling clues together, trying to figure out why the house key doesn't work, wondering if a window is open, should she run? because she has to get inside or else...) Then, after those two paragraphs -
At that moment, the shifter appears. Natasha backs up, next to the door out of reach, quaking. If only she'd gotten inside she'd have her wand.
He said, "I shift more than myself, Natasha. Your keys are worthless. You're not in your world anymore. "
Second draft would be tighter - but same structure. Is this structure somehow wrong?
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4 answers
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I think it is a mistake to think of your story as a set of reveals. A story has a shape and the reader remains interested if they sense that the story is making progress. Tension is not created by mysteries but by anticipation. Consider a romance. We all know what the resolution will be. We all know who the right guy is for the heroine and that she will eventually choose him over the wrong guy. We are along for the ride because we want to see and experience this eternal story happening in a new pair of lives.
If your readers are wanting more information sooner it is because they do not feel like the story is making progress. If you are withholding information to set up a "reveal" this is almost certainly going to create a sense that progress is not being made. It is the literary equivalent of sitting in a traffic jam. Yes, you will eventually get to see the accident scene that caused the jam, but anticipation of that happy event does not in any way make sitting in the jam an enjoyable experience.
In Star Wars, which follows the hero's journey like a textbook, the droid delivering the appeal from the princess (the call to adventure) comes at exactly the prescribed moment. It moves the story forward into its next stage (crossing the threshold). The reader is not impatient to know what the princess's message means because they are bowling down the road with the wind in their hair. The story is moving. It is making progress. Yipee!
EDIT TO ADDRESS ADDED EXAMPLES: The example seems to me a perfect illustration that sometimes you should tell, not show. One shows in order to let the reader draw their own conclusions about an event. But here the conclusion to be drawn is simple and straightforward. The key no longer worked. There is no room for interpretation here, but by going through the motions of jiggling and trying etc, you force the reader to reach the conclusion for themselves, which suggests to them that there is some ambiguity about this. But there isn't. The key does not work. This is a mere mechanical and material fact. Don't make me work it out. Don't suggest that there is something to work out. Just tell me.
Further to this, it is the fact of the key not working which is the most significant point in this scene. It is what matters to move the story forward. So all the pantomime around showing that it does not work is actually a traffic jam that is holding up progress in the story.
If the point of the scene was that your hero was frazzled of anxious, the pantomime with the key might serve to show it, but it's not the point. The point is that she is not in Kansas anymore. On that note, read the section of the Wizard of Oz where Dorothy lands in Oz and look at how straightforward and matter-of-fact the prose is.
In short, if you have marvels to relate, relate the marvels. Keep the story moving forward.
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There are "odd things", and there are "mysteries". Mysteries are supposed to get the audience on the hook, and get explained at some point later. Odd things just happen without explanation, and characters move on like nothing happened, whereas audience is left wondering about them.
Are you sure your readers immediately identify "odd things" as "mysteries", and not something odd, which would probably never going to be explained?
This post was sourced from https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/34516. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
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I admit I haven't thought much about this, as a discovery writer. However, I am following a character (or some) and I don't really have "odd things" happening.
There are clear things happening the character does not understand that pretty much force them to take some action. Somebody tried to kill them, or did kill somebody else. In "The Pelican Brief", Julia Roberts is navigating a simple life of having an affair with her law professor, when he is killed by a car bomb she witnesses, she would have been killed with him if not for a convenient minor argument they just had. That is not an "odd thing", it is an obvious plot point, i.e. what the story is about, so the audience expects it to be answered later, maybe not until the end of the story. Right now, she is confused and frightened and driven to action.
As for actual clues to something that will come together later, I do that, but I always make sure my POV character has some alternative explanation for anything out of the ordinary, or rolls with it as part of the normal random variations of life; not everybody likes lemon desserts as much as she does, this guy does. (the fact that he is her biological father doesn't occur to her.) Chances are, I wouldn't catch this clue until I reread the book, although if it is one of the litany of things she cites in figuring out this guy is a blood relative, I would say, "oh yeah, she's right!"
I don't like obvious "odd things" in books, they feel false to me, especially if the character must realize it is an odd thing and doesn't (she's an idiot), or she knows it is odd and shrugs it off, oh well, crazy things happen. Neither of those is good writing.
Apply Occam's razor: The simplest explanation is the most likely explanation.
For my character, the simplest explanation is that some people love lemon desserts, and that is the most likely reason this guy does too. The idea this guy likes lemon desserts, and therefore is her biological father, is silly, that is the conclusion that would lose the reader completely.
By Occam's razor, there is no plausible explanation for the owls; thus the reader knows this is a plot point that will be explained (better be explained) later. It is not a random odd thing, important characters don't blow it off.
You don't build suspense with such odd things; the reader identifies with the POV character(s). If they don't notice and pursue the odd thing (thus promising a mystery that will eventually be revealed), and the odd thing doesn't seem to affect anything else or cause any actions to be taken, then the reader is not intrigued but confused by the odd thing, and confusion leads to irritation with the author.
There may be exceptions; Douglas Adams' Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency is the closest thing I can think of to "odd things" happening or appearing that make zero sense. But even though other characters may blow off the odd things, Dirk himself is intensely interested in every one of them, despite not understanding them, and they do all knit together in the final reveal when he solves the mystery.
Edit for added examples: I will agree with Mark, mostly. I think it is fine to race up to the house, fumbling with the key and have it not work. Then you lost me, as you lost your beta readers. It's the right key is the end of that story. It is irrational to try your car key in the door, or your sister's house key. You tried the right key. If she's irrational, how does she know it's the right key?
The right reaction is "The lock is jammed somehow" and running to try the back door, or break the best window to get in, or take some other proactive action. Without adding these scene elements, the shifter could appear at that moment: when Natasha realizes "The lock is jammed somehow" the shifter appears with his line and explains why.
Of course it doesn't explain why he didn't just shift the door into a brick wall, or her key into a bottle opener, or shift her into a bunny rabbit, but I'll presume you have a plausible explanation for that.
It is a valid instinct to note that Natasha's mindset must switch from "desperate hope" to "all hope is lost" at some point, and that should be shown, drawing it out like this doesn't help. She should conclude the lock is jammed and turn to plan B immediately (The bathroom window, the latch is loose!), or lose hope. Perhaps, she thinks of Plan B, and the shifter appears at that moment.
As a writing point, an action scene is not a great place for pondering, wondering, or putting together clues. She is in a fight or flight situation, that means her frontal cortex is shut down (except for highly trained fighters), analytic logic abilities are minimized and memory is enhanced (it helps with alternatives, paths, enemy weaknesses, etc).
If your gun jams, pull your knife, or flee or escape. You don't stand there with a jammed gun and ponder what is wrong with it, you can't think through such logic. Your enemy is still firing!
Her memory will fill her mind with images that might help her get into the house: that bathroom window, even quicker the barbecue she can throw through the plate glass rear door, the shovel she left in the garden could be a makeshift weapon.
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Pushing off from Alexander's answer, when something "strange" happens in a book I am reading, and I notice it, (sometimes a bit of strangeness can be a subtle hint that I'd only see upon rereading), I either trust the author that this is a hook, to be explained later, or I am frustrated by random oddness. The first excites me and draws me in. The second pushes me out.
The true question is, of course, what makes the difference. Why is it that sometimes I trust the author, and sometimes I don't?
I'm not sure I have the whole of it, but I think, at least in part, this has to do with the author acknowledging the mystery. When Harry Potter starts getting his letters, he is immediately curious about them. With the Ring, other hobbits comment on Bilbo not appearing to grow older, and Gandalf is concerned about Bilbo's unusual behaviour. Lacking this acknowledgement, I would have been frustrated: wondering what on earth is going on, why those things are happening. The acknowledgement of the strangeness is a promise that an answer will be given later.
Once I've been given such a promise of future resolution, I can wait for its for quite a while. In Dresden Files, 15 books in, there's still acknowledgement of issues unresolved from the 1st and 2nd books. (However, the longer I have to wait, the more impressive I'd expect the resolution to be. Think of Star Wars The Last Jedi: it feels as a let-down to learn that Rey's parents are nobody, not because we particularly mind them being nobody, but because for two films there was this promise to "reveal who her parents are".)
So, to sum up, I don't think the issue is with readers' impatience and pacing reveals. I might be wrong, but I think the issue is with acknowledging the presence of a mystery, which would effect a promise of a reveal later on.
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