Visual Writing Prompt: Hiding in Plain Sight

Last Sunday, we talked about hiding clues. There are, of course, lots of things you can hide in a book. Emotions, feelings of your characters. Truth, lies. Wishes and desires. Family lineage. Knowledge. Power. Fears. Connections and memories. Secrets.

There are plenty of things you and your characters don’t hide. Things in plain sight for the reader to see, learn, know, identify with, believe in, understand. Some are true. Some are false.

What’s real? What’s not? What’s hidden? What’s in plain sight? As the writer, you have to play fair. That doesn’t necessarily mean revealing all up front, but it does mean revealing. At some point. To the reader. Characters may continue to hide things from each other, but eventually the reader needs to know the truth, to know whether they were right or wrong.

Some things you the author can reveal right up front. Look, here it is. But although revealed, it’s still hidden. In among all the other revelations. All the other clues, emotions, pieces of the truth, objects, colors.



(This picture is my first Free Domain capture. It’s by Petr Kratochvil.)

What is your favorite way to hide things from the reader while still playing fair?

Visual Writing Prompt: Hiding Clues

A writer of mystery/suspense/thriller has to hide the clues to the killer, bad guy, answer. Other writers also have to hide things - action/adventure or even fantasy. In almost any book, something is hidden, waiting to be revealed or found out. It’s the author’s job to keep it hidden until time for the reveal. If the reader guesses the ending too soon, the book is a disappointment.

So the author hides things. He may not let us in on the bad guy’s thoughts, or at least not in on all of them. She may hide clues in lists of seemingly unimportant information, one clue among many others. He may put something in plain sight, but have the protagonist, and thus the reader, dismiss it as wrong or inconsequential. The truth may be thrown in among many lies and misdirection. But the clues have to be there. The writer has to play fair (to a certain extent).

Things can be in plain sight, while still hidden. Can you find the golfer among the many palm trees?

You’ll have to look close. He’s not readily visible even if the picture were blown up in size. The golfer (the clue) is in among the palm trees (the distractions), but there are pointers to him (the golf carts), if you’re paying attention. (And if this picture shows up larger in the post than it does in Compose mode.)

Visual Writing Prompt 8-23-09

Do your plots run in a straight line? Do they twist and turn? Do you tell the story from start to finish, laying out the characters and events for the reader? Or do you hide things in the shadows or smoke?

Whether your book is a mystery or a romance or a memoir, the story doesn’t have to travel in a straight line. Everything doesn’t have to be revealed up front. Everything has to be there, but it can be “camouflaged” or told out of sequence. There can be shadows that hide the clues. There can be layers that have to be revealed over the course of the book rather than all at once.

If everything is laid out and revealed, why would your readers keep reading? If all the clues are obvious, what would keep the readers guessing?

One goal should be to make your readers have to work a little to figure out who the bad guy is or if he will be caught, to determine if the heroine deserves the hero or whether someone else will step in, to wonder if the subject of the book will come out whole or with a lesson for the reader.

Your book needs layers. It needs shadows. Clarity. Continuance. It needs turns that take the reader down the unexpected path. It needs depth. Your book can have multiple dimensions, not just one.

Climax and Denouement

While sitting in the doctor’s waiting room this morning, I finished The Poet by Michael Connelly. Had a few problems with the ending, but I’ll try not to give it away here, in case there’s anyone left in the world who hasn’t read it.

I mentioned yesterday that the protagonist did something I considered stupid. Still think that. I know why the author had him do it, but that’s sort of the point. It felt like the author having him do it in order for something to happen a little later on. But it also felt out of character.

This action eventually led the protagonist down a path that also felt forced. There was no set up, no clues, left that would allow the reader to understand the protagonist’s conclusion, so, naturally, the protag/author had to lay it out for us. This led us down a wrong path. But that’s okay. It’s just that the correct path had never been set up or alluded to with any clues either.

I’m not saying I didn’t enjoy the book. I’m just saying the ending didn’t satisfy me.