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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/35445
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/35445
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

### The way you describe them they are not different

You mention that one of the options is about building up small steps, hinting at the fact that he will unlock something.

The other option is about having small steps, which are hard to see, that you are hinting at with him learning something.

These are the same things, you just seem to think that there is a difference depending on how obvious you want to make him taking the steps. But there are still steps. And the reader can still pick up on them. (By the way, him going into a secluded temple without any information about what he is doing there is not really a small hint - that's a big "He has a secret weapon that he will use in his final fight against the Big Bad Evil Guy.)

Pros and Cons are largely the same. In one case you are just trying to be explicit, for example so that you can use the training as a way to showcase his character and possibly his mentor/friends/... while in the "other" approach you are trying to be secretive about it so that you can have "A Big Reveal" in the fight.

Be careful about what you think is that second option - you already mention that it might seem like a _Deus Ex Machina_ and a lot of your readers in a super hero fiction might feel that way, too. It's a sudden secret power that nobody knows anything about before and therefore nobody can say whether the hero really had this ability before or you just became lazy and wanted to have a way for your hero to win this encounter. Simply unlocking the power might feel like a _Deus Ex Machina_, too, depending on your execution, but there your readers have some explicit things that show the character has been trying to learn and use _specifically this_ power for _specifically this_ fight.

In general you will probably want to go with the first route as the other one might feel a bit cheaper. If it's well executed the second _can_ be good, though something like that is more often seen in mystery or crime - think about a crime-solving detective who finds some evidence that is not explicitly shown to the reader/viewer, but is the missing little detail to solving the case.

Original score: 3