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Q&A How best to have a conversation a character does not overhear?

I have a scenario where my main character, who has considerable training and situational awareness has been captured. He has faith that his people will rescue him when the time is right. He learns...

1 answer  ·  posted 6y ago by Rasdashan‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

Question plot characters
#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T10:23:57Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/40840
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by user avatar Rasdashan‭ · 2019-12-08T10:23:57Z (almost 5 years ago)
I have a scenario where my main character, who has considerable training and situational awareness has been captured. He has faith that his people will rescue him when the time is right.

He learns that his former instructor, who is also a psychiatrist, is coming to see him. Two scenarios occur to him - either he will be assessed as a potential security risk and dealt with or he is coming to confirm proper treatment. While he is running the probabilities of one scenario over the other and how best to try to skew things in the direction of the latter, a conversation takes place.

This conversation reveals that one of the agents holding him - a very annoying fellow - is the nephew of this psychiatrist. The issue is the MC must not learn this yet but would start paying attention once he realized they were discussing the person he was thinking about.

The relationship is revealed. The others in the room attach no significance to this.

How best to have the MC remain oblivious of this without him being oblivious?

How best to have him remain unaware of that relationship?

What I envision is a situation where the mentor reveals in passing the relationship of which the others are already aware, so MC is only unaware for a while.

It is third person omniscient.

## TL;DR

The main character doesn't hear something, but the supporting characters do. In omniscient third person, how would this best be handled?

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2018-12-20T20:22:45Z (almost 6 years ago)
Original score: 3