Keeping information from your reader

c.e.lawson · Jul 30, 2007

I'm writing a historical novel with purely fictional characters and a very strong romantic thread. Sometime near the beginning of the last third of the book my MC's husband will do something in secret that prompts her to make a drastic choice in her ignorance (or misinformation, really), and will build up to the climax of the story some chapters later. I haven't started writing that part yet, but it really is the main crux of the romantic part of the story.

My question is this: Should I keep that secret from my readers until later and let them know at the same time my MC finds out? Or should they know the truth as it occurs? This is not a mystery or whodunit - just a drama with what I hope are realistic characters in a historically accurate setting. I know I could write it either way - I just don't know if I should write it one way or the other. I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts.

c.e.

blacbird · Jul 30, 2007

When your MC discovers it, your readers MUST. Anything else is fakery and cheating on the part of the writer.

caw

MMcC · Jul 30, 2007

I disagree. I can't tell you which way to go with this amount of information, but very often the best fiction involves a big "reveal." (Note the absolute insanity as JK Rowling's readers are discovering things even post-release.)

My take would be this: does keeping the information hidden make the revelation of it forced on the other end? Does it help you build tension? Does your hero need the event/info to get sympathy with his readers?

Those answers should inform the decision. I love being kept guessing.

johnzakour · Jul 30, 2007

I agree with blacbird.

swvaughn · Jul 30, 2007

It all depends on how you handle it as a writer.

I'm reading one of the Artemis Fowl books, and there are quite a few things that the MC knows which are kept from the reader for a few chapters after he discovers/figures them out. Of course, he is a genius

so the way the book is written, it's in keeping with the character.

BTW, any Harry Potter fans who are looking for something to fill the void, do check out the Artemis Fowl books. This one -- The Lost Colony -- is just wonderful. It's hilarious. And I think that No1 (an imp) is my favorite fantasy character ever.

c.e.lawson · Jul 30, 2007

I think I've been misunderstood. In this particular story, I would not want to keep any of this from my reader AFTER my MC finds out. What I'm asking is if I should let my reader know BEFORE the MC does. Or should my reader receive the same shock as my MC at exactly the time she does?

JJ Cooper · Jul 30, 2007

What POV are you writing it in?

JJ

c.e.lawson · Jul 30, 2007

MMcC said:
I disagree. I can't tell you which way to go with this amount of information, but very often the best fiction involves a big "reveal." (Note the absolute insanity as JK Rowling's readers are discovering things even post-release.)

My take would be this: does keeping the information hidden make the revelation of it forced on the other end? Does it help you build tension? Does your hero need the event/info to get sympathy with his readers?

Those answers should inform the decision. I love being kept guessing.

This is EXCELLENT food for thought, MMcC. Thank you!

And for JJ Cooper - I'm writing in a very close third person - with most of my chapters being from the MC's POV, but a few of them (out on the battlefield and so forth) will be from either from her husband's or her brother's POV (her brother is in the army with her husband and can observe him for me).

JJ Cooper · Jul 30, 2007

Okay. Therefore, I agree with blacbird.

JJ

blacbird · Jul 30, 2007

c.e.lawson said:
I think I've been misunderstood. In this particular story, I would not want to keep any of this from my reader AFTER my MC finds out. What I'm asking is if I should let my reader know BEFORE the MC does.

Okay. That's a different question than you first asked. I'm a fan of closely-controlled protagonist POV, and, in general, I'd prefer to learn things along with the POV character, whether first-person or third.

caw

Kaytie · Jul 30, 2007

Without reading any of your work, and taking consideration from everything you've said, I'd say I would want to find out when your MC finds out.

You're writing in close third and I don't know how you would get around mentioning what happened without sounding really vague. Vagueness is okay for a short time, but after a while I'd feel disconnected from her character development and I'd lose interest. Close third person requires me to be quite close to the character's thoughts and emotions, so unless she's also hiding things from herself, well, I just don't know how you'd do it and not make me feel cheated out on what compels her to act as she does after she learns the big secret.

I tend to think that it's not the big secrets that are interesting but how we react to them that is compelling, so there's my bias.

And as mentioned, it depends on how you handle it in the writing.

And everyone else has just said that as I typed. Man, you're all so fast!

Ziljon · Jul 30, 2007

C.E., personally, whenever I know that a character is misunderstanding or misinterpreting something it just makes me furious. I'd rather not know as it happens. If you do choose to let us in on what he did and how she's misunderstanding it as it happens, make sure it's really plausible (so we're not screaming "No, you ninny! He didn't mean that!").

johnzakour · Jul 30, 2007

blacbird said:
Okay. That's a different question than you first asked. I'm a fan of closely-controlled protagonist POV, and, in general, I'd prefer to learn things along with the POV character, whether first-person or third.

caw

I still agree...

Danger Jane · Jul 30, 2007

Me too, man. If your POV character knows it, and you're following him closely, let us know it too.

If you weren't going into his head I'd say keep it from us as long as you want. But nah. I'm with blackbird.

caw

Neeli · Jul 30, 2007

On one hand I think I agree with the above posts. If you are writing a close 3rd person POV, then the reader IS the character and we should know everything that happens as it happens. No secrets, no extra info.

BUT . . . There are some very good books (Artemis Fowl is a good example) in which the reader either knows more or less than the lead character. (BTW I think the reader identifies with Holly in Artemis Fowl, not Artemis himself). This can be done for EFFECT. For example, in a mystery, Inspector Poirot may have figured out who dunnit and set the stage for catching the killer while leaving the reader to try to figure out using the same clues if they know who did it. That's the fun.

And in a romance one might know both sides of the story when the lead character does not. Especially if you're writing omniscient. Then you have to be careful that you don't make your character look stupid for misunderstanding.

My advice: try it both ways and get opinions on which is better. I think you won't know until you try.

Danger Jane · Jul 30, 2007

True, but it can be REALLY annoying when we know the POV character knows something that we don't know. Especially if it's a tight POV. It's hard to pull off.

Ziljon · Jul 30, 2007

Huh? I thought C.E. was saying that the mc's husband would do something, and she would misunderstand it as it happened, (or after), and that would cause her to make a fateful decision.

So, in that case, if we're inside the mc's head, (the mc's POV), then we wouldn't want to know the truth as it happened, but only after she'd made her decision and found out herself, (or we were told in a kind of denouement). No?

Isn't that what blacbird and all the others mean to say?

JJ Cooper · Jul 30, 2007

I think so Ziljon.

JJ

Danger Jane · Jul 30, 2007

Unreliable narrators are great. I just find it irritating a lot of times when the POV character knows what we don't.

c.e.lawson · Jul 30, 2007

Ziljon said:
Huh? I thought C.E. was saying that the mc's husband would do something, and she would misunderstand it as it happened, (or after), and that would cause her to make a fateful decision.

So, in that case, if we're inside the mc's head, (the mc's POV), then we wouldn't want to know the truth as it happened, but only after she'd made her decision and found out herself, (or we were told in a kind of denouement). No?

Isn't that what blacbird and all the others mean to say?

This is exactly what I mean. Thank you because I think I'm getting confused, LOL! Almost all of the scenes will be from my female MC's POV. But since in Sparta so much of the mens' time is with the military, I wanted to include some of that, too. At some point the husband purposely misleads his wife. He has his reasons which he thinks are noble. My question is, should I tell the reader that he's lied to her exactly when he lies to her? OR should my reader find out when SHE finds out - quite far after the fact, and after she's acted on that misinformation. I would NOT have scenes from the husband's POV when or after he lies to her, if I keep it from the reader, so no trickery involved. The scenes from his POV are before that and unrelated to that incident and just to allow us to get to know him better. Then things will play out from her POV and she eventually finds out.

Danger Jane · Jul 30, 2007

Like in Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, only then it's narrated from far in the future. The old old MC is remembering her life. We find out her revelations as she finds them out--she might have hinted at them before but never actually told us. It worked very well.

Yeah my vote goes to tell us only what she knows. Still.

Carmy · Jul 30, 2007

If your characters knows something, how are you going to tell the reader she knows? Can you do it without telling the reader what it is? I don't think so.

If you switch from the female's POV to a male's POV, your problem is solved -- the reader will know something before the female finds out. I've seen it done in many novels and I think it works well. In a mystery or suspense story it adds to the nail biting when the female gaily forges ahead without an incling of something important, like danger she may be walking into.

blacbird · Jul 30, 2007

Although movies are by no means exact analogies for novels, I've always found one particular movie instructive in respect to this question: Chinatown. I regard it as the best mystery movie ever made. It has fascinated me for many years, and it was only the third or fourth time I watched it that I figured out why:

The protag, Jake Gittes (Jack Nicholson) never discovers anything before the audience does, and vice versa. There's a fabulous scene in that film where Gittes has learned that the mysterious murder he's investigating has something to do with water rights in 1930s southern California. But he doesn't know doodlysquat why, and neither do we, the audience. He goes out into a dry riverbed at sunset just to look at it and ponder, and is told by a passing Latino youth on a donkey that sometimes the water comes down the riverbed. He walks up to a big dry pipe outlet and stares out at the sunset and is clearly wondering what the hell is going on.

At which exact moment we, the audience, are wondering exactly the same thing.

Watch this movie critically, and see what you think. Roman Polanski is a genius director, and this might be his masterpiece. I'd love to be able to write a novel of similar quality.

caw

JoNightshade · Jul 30, 2007

Doesn't Jane Austen do this all the time? The reader knows both sides of the story and is watching as the characters suffer under their own misapprehensions and idiocy. IE Pride and Prejudice.

Which is possibly why I don't like Jane Austen.

blacbird · Jul 30, 2007

JoNightshade said:
Doesn't Jane Austen do this all the time? The reader knows both sides of the story and is watching as the characters suffer under their own misapprehensions and idiocy.

Exactly the opposite of what I was saying. In Chinatown the audience emphatically does not know anything more than the characters know. Which is exactly what makes it so suspenseful. Another excellent movie example of the same technique is the early Cohen Brothers flick Blood Simple. Good literary examples would include the mysteries of Rex Stout or the Travis McGee thrillers of John D. MacDonald.

caw

Keeping information from your reader

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