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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/34518
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/34518
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

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.

Original score: 18