This post was originally published at Novelicious.com and is now at WritingTipsOasis.com. WritingTipsOasis.com acquired Novelicious.com in June 2022.
by Anna Bell
I'm reading a book at the moment and it has been driving me crazy. The protagonist has been teasing me, the reader, with a secret. I've loved the book so far, but hated being kept in the dark and it got me thinking, where's the line between letting the reader into the character's world and keeping secrets to create the twists and turns?
I've talked a lot in previous columns about predictability, and how difficult it can be in the chick-lit genre, which usually demands a happy-ever-after, to keep the reader on their toes. But I feel this is the opposite end of the spectrum. Is it possible to keep your reader so in the dark that they get frustrated by their lack of knowledge and begin to get so weary of the teasing – the big secret – that they wonder when they are going to be privy to it?
We're in a book climate where novels with unreliable narrators and huge plot twists leave you, the reader, slapped in the face (in a good way). Gone Girl and Before I Go to Sleep immediately spring to mind. It's not surprising that these techniques have crept into chick-lit, but for me part of the appeal of chick-lit is that empathy and relationship you develop with a main character. Whilst I love nothing more than a plot twist, I do like to know who the main characters really are. I want to root for them and I want to understand their journey.
The theme of my Don't Tell series was secrets. The main character Penny kept secrets from her fiancé/boss/clients, but the reader was always kept in the loop. Most of the humour and the story was derived from Penny trying to hide what was going on from those around her. I can't imagine that readers would have built up the same empathy with her if they'd not been given the full story.
I thought about the theme of this column this morning, then I read some more of the book and I now understand why the secret was kept. There was a massive plot twist and if the reader had been filled in about the character's past it would have ruined how the story was told. Yet, as much as I understand it, I still feel a little bit peeved as a reader. I feel like I was being teased and that I didn't really get to know the character as they hadn't 'given themselves to me', the reader. It's funny as, until today, I didn't realise that along with a little bit of predictability (I like to pretend to be clever and guess plot twists), I also like to know the truth behind the characters I read about.
As a writer there seems to be a need for balance between not only predictability vs surprise, but also the dramatic irony and what the reader needs to know.
Do you like secrets in stories, or does the secret teasing drive you nuts? Or are character revelations more suited to particular genres?