Advice Regarding Information Available to the Reader ...

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britlitfantw

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Imagine a sequel to a fantasy novel written in dual-POV, with viewpoint characters ‘A’ and ‘B’. Now, B believes he killed A -- basically the only person who could have told the kingdom where he was -- in the climax of book one. However, we know that A is still alive. Is it annoying, or tense-nail biting (in a good way) if the antagonist blackmails B under the circumstances that A is dead, even though the antagonist knows (and we know) that A isn’t, in order to keep B working for her?

... looking back, that’s a real tongue-twister, but hopefully some of you smart writerly types can help me out here. Thanks so much, guys!
 

Saanen

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Sure--not only would it work, but you could make it a pretty emotional sequence. B could be full of guilt and/or completely broke and unable to pay the blackmail except with huge difficulty. He could suspect at some point that A is alive and tries to find him. And does A realize B thinks he killed him? Does he care? Does he want a cut of the blackmail money and threatens to show himself to B otherwise? Maybe he finds out and feels terrible, but the blackmailer keeps him away from B for some reason. Maybe he has no idea and A and B keep almost meeting.

Oh well, you probably already have your story worked out. I'm just avoiding working on a snarl I've come across in my own story. :)
 

britlitfantw

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Awesome! Thanks guys.

Sure--not only would it work, but you could make it a pretty emotional sequence. B could be full of guilt and/or completely broke and unable to pay the blackmail except with huge difficulty. He could suspect at some point that A is alive and tries to find him. And does A realize B thinks he killed him? Does he care? Does he want a cut of the blackmail money and threatens to show himself to B otherwise? Maybe he finds out and feels terrible, but the blackmailer keeps him away from B for some reason. Maybe he has no idea and A and B keep almost meeting.
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Indeed, B is extremely full of guilt (long story, but he felt unrequited love for A and killed her -- or thinks he did -- anyway). The antagonist has plans to overthrow the high king so that she can take the throne, and up until this point B has helped her. B is wanted for treason and murder, so what the antagonist is threatening to do is turn him in anonymously if he doesn't help her. So it's actually not monetary blackmail, but imprisonment blackmail. ^_^ A knows that B tried to kill her, but ... okay, now I'm just fuelling your 'avoiding working on a snarl' fire. What I meant to say is thanks to both of you for your help.
 
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