Skipping dialogue...

[lonewolfwanderer]

The protagonist is about to hear something vital to the plot of the story, but you don't want the reader to hear it... is it fine to skip?

i've often seen in other media types that just before you hear what the information is, they do a scene change and you only find out what that information was later on. It leaves a cliffhanger. Would that work for written work?

 

[Ursa major]

Is this much different from the MC calling his friends/associates together and saying, at the end of a scene/chapter: "Now this is what we're going to do."


I don't think so. But while what you want to do is okay, I suppose it would work only if the technique was not used over and over again. After all, you don't want the reader to feel excluded from the story, Doing this once (or, possibly, twice) might add a frisson of pleasure, along the lines of letting the reader know that something is afoot, something that's likely to be out of the ordinary, clever even; if it becomes to be seen more as a convenience for the writer than heightening the experience of the reader, that probably won't go down well.

 

[lonewolfwanderer]

Is this much different from the MC calling his friends/associates together and saying, at the end of a scene/chapter: "Now this is what we're going to do."


I don't think so. But while what you want to do is okay, I suppose it would work only if the technique was not used over and over again. After all, you don't want the reader to feel excluded from the story, Doing this once (or, possibly, twice) might add a frisson of pleasure, along the lines of letting the reader know that something is afoot, something that's likely to be out of the ordinary, clever even; if it becomes to be seen more as a convenience for the writer than heightening the experience of the reader, that probably won't go down well.

It won't be used often. Here is the pitch line i have so far (this links with the other thread i've got going).

William learns of a secret that sends him on a journey to find his father, but when he stumbles across Misraka, birth place of the gods, he faces the responsibility after unleashing a dark threat upon the twelve kingdoms of Amaranthea.

The secret that i have at the moment is who his father really is: a god. But i don't want the reader to know this too early. in fact i only want this aspect revealed much later in the story when William actually finds his father (if i go for that secret that is). But William needs to know it, as it will potentially drive him to find his father, thus sending him on the journey. However, i don't want the reader to know it as it risks spoiling the plot.

Is there an effective way to reveal it to William without revealing it to the reader?

 

[Jo Zebedee]

If William knows it and you have his pov, and he doesn't tell the reader, you're into unreliable narrator territory.

If he deliberately withholds it from the reader, then I think that's dodgy in close third because we're in his thoughts. But if he is withholding it from himself eg he can't think about it now, he doesn't believe it, then that's fine, I think. But I'd have difficulty with a writer essentially lying to me through the whole book and expecting me to smile at the clever reveal.

 

[Ursa major]

Is there an effective way to reveal it to William without revealing it to the reader?

I'm not sure.

My concern would be that if I found out that my father was a god (even in a world where everyone believes such gods exist), I'd probably be thinking about it a lot of the time, to the exclusion of other things. If William spends any time in the narrative thinking about things, but not this, I think the reader might feel you, as the writer, have not played fair with them.

Frankly, if you don't want the reader to know, you either not let William know or you can't have William as a PoV character.

But there might be another way, as long as it's made explicit: have William believe that he's being guided in some way. Have William question some of the decisions he's making, both because they're not the ones he'd usually make and because these hunches lead to the right answers. That way, although the reader will come to understand William is being aided, they won't know how or why. And perhaps William could help them think there might be another explanation:

It's almost as if, thought William, the <whatever the item is> is helping me find its owner.​

 

[lonewolfwanderer]

Okay then. I will have to come up with another secret that will drive William to search for his father, because the reader cannot know who William is until much later.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Okay then. I will have to come up with another secret that will drive William to search for his father, because the reader cannot know who William is until much later.

Or another way of telling the story. An example, in one of my wips the mother in the story has a secret which is crucial to the end. I went about it by:

Trying not to use her as a pov character (which ties in to your other thread.) is there a reason Littlefingers isn't a pov character in Game of Thrones? I think so; he knows something crucial to the end.

Where I did skip into her pov keeping it in short, little scenes that sounded - almost - reasonable. (I had one up on crits and managed to get it past everyone except the ever-astute Harebrain) only in the final one do we realise her world view is very odd. But at no point does she think her view is odd, so I'm not fooling the readers, just being very strict on the use of third in her pov.

So, do you need him as a pov character? If so, is there any way he wouldn't be thinking about this - shrouded memories? Deliberately hiding it from himself for a plot-related reason?

 

[SleepyDormouse]

I agree that I don't think it would sit very well with me. If it was important enough to make the MC seek out the father then it would be foremost in his thoughts. If he was trying to avoid thinking about it then he wouldn't be searching for his father.

You might be able to wriggle it in 1st pov, more easily than in 3rd, but would be constantly going on this quest "for reasons that I can't tell you about" and that would get annoying in my opinion.

Could he perhaps just get nuggets of information along the way, that the reader has to put together gradually to fill in the blanks? If the reader is allowed to realise the father is a god before the MC it will make them feel clever, and readers like that.

 

[sknox]

I just finished reading a Rex Stout novel, Some Buried Caesar. Toward the end, Nero Wolfe tells Archie he has a plan for catching the murderer, but Archie must do certain specific things. The chapter ends with a "here's what you need to do..." He actually used ellipses to end the chapter!

That's one example that occurred to me, but there are plenty of others, I'm sure. My only caveat is this: an established author can get away with things. A new author is more constrained.

The only real way to know with this is to write the scene the way you want to write it. It may be you'll find you don't like it. But if you do, then show it to your beta readers. If they give it a pass, the next hurdle will be the agent. Then the publisher. In other words, the scene has plenty of hurdles ahead of it.

 

[tinkerdan]

I've seen it done and I think it can work but there is the question of how vital it is to the whole and there has to be some sort of a trade off to withholding it. By that I mean that if it is important to the POV character then there should be some indication that the POV character is affected and the reader can notice enough to deduce that this is the result of the unknown revelation.

As to being unreliable; that is questionable since if you interrupt the narrative at that point and take it up later at a distance from the event then the only deception is that there appear to be pages missing.

The biggest difficulty might be any subsequent interaction or event that might trigger a reason to remember the event has to be handled well enough that the reader doesn't get the feeling this should have come up at some previous point when it is revealed. Otherwise it becomes a device of convenience that the writer uses only when convenient to the POV character. Or worse yet its like the mousetrap with too much cheese whiz on it. The first mouse comes by and nibbles a corner, the second comes and nibbles another corner and the third charges in thinking to get it all. Snap!

That might make it an unreliable plot device.

 

[psychotick]

Hi,

No. In my view if this is central to the story and your MC knows it, how can it not be front an centre in his thoughts as he travels to find him. You either end up in the situation of the frustrated reader thinking something is very wrong here - they know there's something they haven't been told but they don't know its a mystery to be solved as the book progresses. Or worse when the revelation is made it seems like a deus ex machina.

My thought would be that instead of telling him the details, he is told maybe the location, or given a reason why he has to find him. That way you have a reason for him to be on the quest and maybe also a mystery for him and by extension the reader, to wonder about / solve. And the reader can be in the MC's head without having to wonder why the MC doesn't answer his questions.

Cheers, Greg.

 

[RebeccaTheWrecker]

Hmmm I just don't know if it would work.

Usually I would say yes, it's fine to end chapters or scenes with someone saying 'And this is what we'll do' but not telling the reader what they will do. But as this is a secret that is supposedly driving William towards his goal I'm not sure if you can get away with not mentioning it. As a reader I would probably be a bit annoyed if I didn't know this secret, something so essential to the story, and the MC did all along (or at least for most of his journey).

As others have said, if my dad was a God, I would be thinking about it a lot. I'm sure there are plenty of other secrets that you could use that drive William towards finding his father - it depends on how dark you want to go. I recently read a book where a son was searching for his father because he thought his father had run off with another woman (this is the simple version of a convoluted story) but in reality his father and the other woman were rebel spies whose cover was blown and they were forced out of town by the bad guys. I know this has little to do with your story, but perhaps an idea like that would work?

I'm sure you'll come up with another brilliant secret that will work!

 

[tinkerdan]

Your best bet would be to make use of the possibility that some readers might be lazy. Come very close to revealing the whole thing but walk all around it as if William appears to be trying to deny something that might be important but seems too far out to consider possible and then finally dismissing it based on some simple thing like if my father were a god than wouldn't I be one too or at least a part god and how would that feel. Only leave words out of his thoughts that would point directly at godhood.

Like such thoughts as, 'But that makes no sense.' He looks at his hands and turns his palms upward. 'I mean...look at me. No; there has to be some other answer. But it definitely has something to do with all this.'

That would mean there is a seed of doubt in both directions and enough to make him look further.

 

[Toby Frost]

While there's no reason that you can't write this (you can write whatever you like, really) I think it would be extremely difficult to withhold this information from the reader without it looking very deliberate and forced.

I once read a Dorothy L Sayers crime novel where a character looked through a bag. The author literally said words to the effect of "Any sensible reader will realise what was missing from the bag". I don't think that would work now - assuming that it did back then.

 

[lonewolfwanderer]

One of the major driving forces of my WIP is finding out who William is. So he cannot learn that his father is a god early on, or at least the reader can't.

So, I've decided that that secret will be left out until later on. At the moment the aspect lies in William learning about the event that killed his mother and that his father is somehow linked to the whole ordeal. The reason so far is that an external force caused him to forget, someone who was maybe trying to cover something up... Or maybe he believed his father to be dead, but learns otherwise...

Now i wander what that reason could be...? (that question is rhetorical). There are so many possibilities, its hard to keep up

Thanks for all the input!

 

[The Storyteller]

I think that sounds like a better plan! Although it could be possible for him to know something we don't, I feel more invested if I am learning things with the MC. It is more important for us to find out and more impacting when we do if it is important/impacting to William!


And good luck thinking of a reason! If I knew more about your book, I'd try and make a few suggestions, but as you said I guess the question was rhetorical!

Sounds like an interesting story regardless; I hope to hear more about it in the future! Best of luck.

 

[alchemate]

I think it could work, but it might not work as good as it does in other forms of media. I think it would work best in 1st person stories, where the protagonist hears something but keeps it from the reader (himself) because it doesn't want to think about it, it's so world-shattering.