Keeping curiosity unsated?

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Lagrangian
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Something I've noticed, both in amateur writing and more professional stuff.
The secrets are always revealed, why is that?
Is it simply because the only secrets you would introduce are the ones you intend to solve? (That's kinda depressing, the readers would know I'm going to tell them eventually, takes away from the story IMO.)
Is it an authors compulsion to tell a secret, especially only they know.
Is there a literary reason for always revealing the secret(s)?

Have I overlooked the actual reason?

Am I allowed to keep some secrets, or to leave things in the book unexplained?
 

Mr Flibble

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Not all secrets are always revealed

Mostly it's the secrets relevant to this particular story that are revealed ( and not always then, thining of a couple of books I've read). And how do you know if there are more secrets if they are secret? :D That's how I work anyway.


Am I allowed to keep some secrets, or to leave things in the book unexplained?
If they are secrets you've hinted at in the book or used heavily in the plot...how many angry letters do you want? If they are just by the by secrets, sure why not.
 

eyeblink

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How about secrets that the reader knows (or can work out) but the characters don't?

A good example is the final section of Gene Wolfe's The Fifth Head of Cerberus. It's written in diary format by a character who doesn't know whether he is really himself or a shapeshifting alien. And at the end of the story he still doesn't know - but there are clues along the way which the reader can work out.

I tried something similar regarding one of the characters in The Storyteller's Tale - no-one so far has spotted it though. :(
 

ElsaM

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How about secrets that the reader knows (or can work out) but the characters don't?

A good example is the final section of Gene Wolfe's The Fifth Head of Cerberus. It's written in diary format by a character who doesn't know whether he is really himself or a shapeshifting alien. And at the end of the story he still doesn't know - but there are clues along the way which the reader can work out.

I tried something similar regarding one of the characters in The Storyteller's Tale - no-one so far has spotted it though. :(

Gene Wolfe leapt to mind for me too. He often just leaves hints for the reader instead of including outright explanations and I sometimes enjoy this tactic and sometimes find it frustrating.

If an author refers to a secret and then never explains it, and doesn't give me enough information for me to work it out on my own, I become very frustrated and will likely not read anything by that author again.

If the secret is part of an author's invented world there is nowhere else I can go for answers. On the other hand, if there's a possibility that the secret will be resolved in a later work by the author then it's not as big an issue for me.
 
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