SPEAKER_01: 0:00

I think that you want to treat your reader like a friend. Give them as much information as you possibly can so that when your surprises and your twists and your world building arrive, they've got all the tools they need to enjoy it, to understand it, and be ready for the next part of the scene. They're reading at a normal pace, they want to keep reading. Give them the tools they need to both get it and then keep going on to the next line.

SPEAKER_00: 0:24

Welcome to the Fiction Writing Made Easy Podcast. My name is Savannah Gilbo, and I'm here to help you write a story that works. I want to prove to you that writing a novel doesn't have to be overwhelming. So each week I'll bring you a brand new episode with simple, actionable, and step-by-step strategies that you can implement in your writing right away. So whether you're brand new to writing or more of a seasoned author looking to improve your craft, this podcast is for you. So pick up a pen and let's get started. In today's episode, we're tackling one of the biggest misconceptions in fiction writing, and that is the idea that keeping secrets from your readers creates suspense. And spoiler alert, it usually doesn't work that way. Now, today I have a very special guest. His name is Daniel David Wallace, and he is a storytelling master as well as the creative mind behind the Escape the Plot Forest Summit. And in this episode, Daniel and I are exploring the art of revealing just the right amount of information to keep your readers hooked without giving away the entire story. We discuss why treating your readers like friends rather than enemies can transform your writing and create a more engaging experience. Plus, we'll share practical tips on how to strategically plant clues and build suspense in your novel. So grab a notebook and let's dive right into my conversation with Daniel David Wallace.

SPEAKER_01: 1:41

Hi, Savannah. It's great to be here. Such an honor.

SPEAKER_00: 1:44

I'm so excited to have you here. And we have a hot topic to discuss today. But first, can you let my audience know who you are, what you do, and things like that?

SPEAKER_01: 1:51

Of course. Um my name is Daniel David Wallace. I help writers write novels. I help people um try to get their vision on the page and actually finish that story. I'm also the host of the Escape the Plot Forest Summit every October. It's been a fantastic experience. And you've been such an amazing speaker. I'm always it's always great when you're able to come back and speak and speak at that event. I'm a busy parent. I'm an ambivalent pet owner. Yeah, uh, it's great to be able to do work that I really love.

SPEAKER_00: 2:22

So we are here to talk about holding things back or keeping secrets from readers and why we shouldn't do that, which I know is probably gonna surprise a lot of listeners to hear us say you shouldn't keep secrets from your readers. So, with that being said, where do you want to kick off, Daniel?

SPEAKER_01: 2:38

I wondered if we could talk about mystery not mystery novels first of all.

SPEAKER_00: 2:42

Yes.

SPEAKER_01: 2:42

That's often where I see this, where it's the most visible. I'm thinking of novels where there is an amateur detective, a single genius police officer trying to solve a crime. And when I think back to the books that I really love in those genres and that style of writing, what I remember is that the clues are just thrown at the reader like confetti. From the very beginning, the reader is getting all kinds of hints and possibilities. Um, someone will say, Oh, the vicar has a real temper, and the reader thinks, oh, that's important. I should I should bear that in mind. There is so much being presented to us that could, that seems like it could be relevant to the murder. And in contrast, what I see many authors who are working on their book do instead is operate with a kind of fear that if I reveal too much, I'm giving away the ending. And the reader will get bored or the reader will just sort of think they've got everything. And so instead, it feels like rather than this rich, intense world of clues and red herrings and gossip, we're instead kind of watching this character kind of just walk around town. They spend a lot of time kind of walking around, trying to get an appointment with someone. And I always want to say that, you know, I mean, however you write the book is up to you. That's like a separate topic. If you need to write those scenes and then walking around town, then that's fine. But the end goal should be not that. The goal should be to kind of try to deliver as much as possible to the reader as soon as possible. That's kind of where I came in with this topic, where when I started noticing the most. What do you think about that?

SPEAKER_00: 4:24

I mean, I see very similar things, and we could probably list a thousand examples of when it's done not well, and we can we can do that. Um, but I like to always think about the reader's experience. So, kind of like what you were just saying, the fun part of reading stories like that is to have all the clues surrounding you and the true clues and the false clues. And then we have to be clever and figure out which ones are real, which ones are fake. Am I gonna guess it before the detective? You know, that's part of the experience that we want. So, to your point, when I see this done poorly, it's almost like, yes, the reader has a lot of questions because there's not a lot on the page. And so we're we're asking questions, but they're not the right questions. We're kind of asking, like to your example of a character walking around town, we're like, what's the point of this? Like, what are we doing here? Instead of, oh, I wonder if it's gonna be the vicar or if it's gonna be Miss Susie or, you know, whoever, whoever.

SPEAKER_01: 5:16

So Yeah, exactly. And I think that uh on a really basic practical level, I think that many writers, let me get this, get this the right way around. Like, underestimate how much information the typical reader needs. That the typical reader often will just miss something that that the writer thinks they've made very clear. They will they will not even remember a character that that was mentioned 30, 40 pages ago. Um, the reader put the book down and dealt with some kind of crisis in the kitchen and came back three days later.

SPEAKER_00: 5:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 5:52

And and so I think that often writers are worried about being too obvious, putting it on too thick. And I always want to say, no, I'll be obvious.

SPEAKER_00: 6:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 6:02

Um, be lay it on way too thick. Because you can always dial that stuff down.

SPEAKER_00: 6:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 6:08

If I showed you a really compelling murder mystery that I had written, and you said, wonderful, on the edge of my seat, couldn't stop reading, but I did figure out who the killer was at three-quarter mark. Well, I'd much rather have that problem than the opposite problem, which is you say, Yeah, I'm still reading it, I'll get back to you. Because obviously it wasn't a fun read. Like that, I think, is a much bigger problem that writers should deal with.

SPEAKER_00: 6:32

Yeah, I totally agree. And, you know, it's funny because I think this comes from a place of fear sometimes, right? It's like you don't want to get it wrong because of this, you don't want to get it wrong because of that. And so this idea of like, how do we know how much to put in, when to put in, that's um also kind of just the challenge for us writers and how we get better at our craft is dissecting stories like you're talking about and then applying that to our own work. And I always say something similar to you is that in your first draft, be obvious, like lay it on as thick as you want, put all the clues in there because you're probably still not even doing it to the extent that you need to. You know, that's what I see. Do you see the same thing?

SPEAKER_01: 7:08

Absolutely. Like often the person who says, I just I wanted to shock you. I wanted to make it so obvious that you would be disgusted. And I say, I thought it was a pretty well-written scene. Like, I I would have put a bit more in, to be honest. Yeah, yeah. And I think when you see when you mentioned about fear is really valid, and I think that one fear many people have is they picture like a book reviewer or an angry person on Goodreads, like mocking them because they weren't, it's a bit hard to put into words, but like austere enough, uh subtle enough. And I think that it's it's really worth trying to look at that fear and saying the only reason that mean person would find the book is because it had been loved by many people and had gone through the whole publishing process. And if that one grumpy person on Goodreads doesn't like it and they figured out the murderer early on, which I see, of course, in published books that are incredibly successful, where I didn't spot the twist at all, and I'll see something I noticed it in chapter two. That I think that that fear of being found out, of not being a good enough artist, I think that it's really worth acknowledging that fear, but realizing that there are there are more important things to get right. You can't please that grumpy person on Goodreads, but you could write a story that yeah, that has the interiority, has the clarity. That as someone reads it, they're like, I understand what's happening here. I don't there's the mysteries, and I'm I want the answers to those mysteries, but I understand sort of where I am, what the story's doing. And I think that's really that's a good goal.

SPEAKER_00: 8:45

Yeah. Everyone's gonna get that one star review too. I think that's just the nature of the game. So, you know, we can think about it like, are we gonna let that fear of that one star review or that comment that we're not being deft enough or whatever, is that what's gonna drive us forward, or is it this desire to finish our books and share it with the, you know, bunch of other people that are really gonna like it? So totally agree. But I know something you talk about is like this idea of going at it to outwit our readers versus kind of bringing the reader along with us and treating them like friends. Can you talk about that?

SPEAKER_01: 9:16

Well, there's so much to say about this. I think that one thing on a purely mechanical level is when you see writers preparing a twist, when you see someone preparing a surprise, it's not difficult to go back and look through the book and just see how much work they did to foreshadow, prepare, and just clarify like what is happening. And I think that some writers feel like my job is to genuinely shock the reader or surprise them. And obviously it's good to be it's good to surprise the reader, but on a deeper level, what we see in a lot of successful novels is that there is so much work being done just to get the reader on board. And the example that I love to, there's a few examples I love to bring up. And one is the ending of the Hunger Games. Sorry, this is a bit of a spoiler, but the book's been around around for a while. The climactic scene of the of the Hunger Games, the original novel, is that Katniss produces these poison berries that she uh threatens to to consume and thus stymie the plans of the game makers. I mean, it's a famous moment. And someone another teacher, Tim Storm, showed me this, and I've I've always been haunted by it. Is if you just search for the word berries in the book, you see dozens of moments. Berries are in the very first chapter before she's even gone off to the games. She's talking about berries, and she discusses at length through the book all the different things that this character knows about berries. We see the poison berries being used in some, so we know they actually are fatal. We sort of see like how you could get confused about having them and who you know, a different someone could have them and not realize they had them. And it's it's really worth sort of breaking down, like, okay, you want this finale to work instantly. So the reader, as soon as the reader gets to that moment, she has the berries in the hand, she sort of says, like, let's eat them. The reader is not sitting there thinking, wait, are the berries actually going to kill them? Like, how long will that take? Could they could it could it's gonna take two, three days? Like, that's not very dramatic. You want the reader to instantly just be on the page with the protagonist. And what I think that novel shows is you've got to give the reader so much dozens of mentions of berries, and and and dramatizing it, not just talking about it, but dramatizing it. These berries really do kill people, it's fast, there's no coming back. This this is gonna work. So that when the moment comes, the reader is there. And so that's not like a murder mystery, but it's just just to make that scene work, you've got to treat the reader like they need they that you're bringing them along. And instead of thinking, I'm worried that there's someone here who's noticed that we've talked about berries a lot halfway through the Hunger Games. I they're gonna they're gonna guess what the ending is, um, you know, which nobody, which no one does.

SPEAKER_00: 12:03

Yeah, I love your point that it's we get at the end, we have all the clarity we need for the impact. So we have all the information, which is why it lands. It's not landing and it's not surprising because we just withheld everything, you know. Um, so I think that's such a great example for readers. And you know that I've studied the Harry Potter book, Ad Nauseum at this point. So it's the same thing there. Like, how many times do we see Snape, who is our red herring, who's directly in front of Professor Quirrell, who's the bad guy? So I would encourage anyone who's listening and thinking that this berry topic or the Professor Quirrell thing is interesting, go look at your favorite books. I bet you'll be so surprised, especially on a Kindle where you can search for things, you know. But I love that example.

SPEAKER_01: 12:43

And I think that having the ebook is so valuable because you can just start putting in words into the find, and you'll be, I think, stunned how many times, just and not even just like the synonym, but just the literal word is coming up over and over again.

SPEAKER_00: 12:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 12:59

You know, another book that I think is really worth studying is The House and the Cerulean Sea, where the characters literally have the same conversation multiple times. It doesn't feel boring, it doesn't feel like way, like, am I being insulted, or does it really is the writer not think I'm getting it? You feel grateful, you feel like, oh, the stakes have now risen, the deadline is getting closer, the the nature of these kids' magical powers is growing more obvious, apparent, our protagonist is getting more and more conflicted, and yet, and so then the the the uh the other characters come in and Linus and Arthur will have essentially the same conversation, but now it's getting more powerful. And this can be done in a very like in a I want to really stress like in a very simple, direct way. It literally is the same conversation. There are other moments when the children will take Linus on a similar kind of a game, adventure game, and each time it's slightly different, but you you understand like what is happening because these things are being repeated. Yeah, and I think that um many writers, I don't want to be like too controversial here, but like I sometimes think that plot structure advice can conceal from writers how much is just staying the same, yeah, same conversations, the same doubts, um, the same in House of the Trillian C, the same letters to his his bosses where he's basically saying the same thing each time, but it's just the stakes are rising, and so the reader's getting more tense. So, well, how is this all gonna work out? I think that that can be really powerful.

SPEAKER_00: 14:29

I do too. And I think as a listener, I might be thinking, okay, I get this in theory. Is there this magic ratio of times I need to say something? Because you know people are gonna want to know that.

SPEAKER_01: 14:39

Yeah, I think that's a great question. I wish I had not. I wish I had the answer to that, but I think that what I see is that you know, when something is really like a conventional surprise, you you can, I think, see like a rule of three, you know, in the in the house in the Trillian Sea, there is a plot thread. This is not really a spoiler, but there is a seller. And I counted how many times does the seller come up before there's a big reveal. And it's about three, four, there's like it's like the third or the fourth dimension because it's pretty straightforward. We're visiting an old house, there is a room, Linus has never been shown, he doesn't know how to get in. It's not that many times. When I see um a book do something where the reader is going to be really tested, I don't know what the top number is, but it's a lot. In the the sci-fi novel A Victory is greater than death by Charlie Jane Anders, the the villain has this incredible power where when he I'm gonna this is a bit of a spoiler, but it's it's not a huge spoiler. The villain has this incredible power where if he kills you, that your friends hate you after death. And that is kind of like a strange idea. It's not you you've never seen it before. It sort of doesn't really make sense in terms of physics, like how is that possible? Because he's like literally he is actually like zapping people, how's he changed people's minds? And Anders goes through example after example. We see multiple people taken out by this villain, and at first it's just it's just described to us, oh then I disliked him, even though he was my friend. And you think that doesn't make sense. Like, how's that possible? What happened? Yeah, like what they must be should be confused. And and Anders shows us this multiple times, getting closer and closer to our protagonist, until in the final scene, it is the protagonist and her best friends against this guy. And you can believe that at that point I'm really on the edge of my seat because I know all the parameters, I understand what will happen if the you know the laser goes off. But it's such an odd idea that if Anna has just said, you know, halfway point, by the way, he's got this magical power, it's pretty bad. And then we got to the finale and he's like firing his laser around, you just think, like, really? Like, yeah, can you just talk yourself out of it? Like, I don't, and so at least seven mentions, I feel like.

SPEAKER_00: 16:58

Yeah, and it wouldn't have the weight too at the finale if you only mentioned it once, because we would be like, I don't know, is this gonna be a problem? Are we risking the friendship? We don't know. And that's something I like to think about too is like, why do we do the things we do? And back to your your point earlier, you said sometimes readers like we're already absorbing other things in the story. So we're not always gonna remember that you mentioned the seller in house of the cerulean sea back in chapter two, if we're in chapter 17. Um, but other times it's like we need to be reminded so that we understand what's going on, what the stakes are. And I love that you brought up the similar conversations at different points, you know, because that is how life works too. If if the stakes in our own life are raised, then it's like, well, what are we gonna do about our family? What are we gonna do about our house? What are we gonna do about our jobs? Right. So it just makes it all feel more cohesive and real. And I think um, yeah, I think the key thing I'm hearing over and over is like, put in more than you think if I'm a listener. Put in more stuff than you think, more clues, more information, and give us those parameters, give us that clarity so you can surprise us later.

SPEAKER_01: 18:00

Yeah, I I I th I think so. Like, like not, you know, like not looking at the reader as like, I don't want to say anyone truly does this, but I think people fall into this idea of the reader is like their their enemy. Yeah. They need to outwit the reader somehow, they need to hold back information from the reader so that they've got a story. Um, your example of the stranger just walking down the street, holding back that it's someone they already know for no reason, really, just to create tension. Um you whereas instead looking at like um the reader as our friend would like all the information we can provide, and they're still not gonna know who the killer is. I mean, these Agatha Christie novels where you've can you've been given endless clues. I mean, at least for me, I don't guess who it is, because there's always more clues, or there's there's a clue that you didn't think about. Even a story like The House in the in the Cerulean Sea, that's not really about twists exactly. It's not about reveals, but the power comes from seeing the character, the main character, change and actually do something. The thing that he's been putting off and avoiding the whole story. That's what gives it its power. And the reader has to have come along on the ride to do that. And I think that many writers sort of underestimate that that element of writing.

SPEAKER_00: 19:20

Right. I agree. I think, yeah, it's such an interesting topic that could we could talk about this by genre too. Like there's so many different ways we could dig into it. But I think what we also need to remember if we're writing these kind of stories is we want to have the effect that you're talking about. We want that power. And like you said, if we don't include all the information, it's gonna rob our stories of that power. But also our job is to get skilled at misdirection and it's to get skilled at knowing how to use these other tools so that we can have the effect we want and not just leave a bunch of stuff out of our stories, you know?

SPEAKER_01: 19:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 19:54

So this I wasn't planning to ask you this question, but what we were talking about earlier kind of made me think about using different point of views, because I can feel almost I can feel listeners on the other side of this equation are like, well, okay, so I'm just gonna give them everything. So I'm gonna include my antagonist point of view. I'm gonna include all the side characters' point of view. It's almost like a knee-jerk in the other way. And then you have to think about the more point of views you include sometimes, that also ruins the suspense. Because if we're showing the antagonist's point of view and we know what their plan is, we know what's coming, and then you take us back into the protagonist's point of view, and they're like, we don't know what's coming. That's dramatic irony. It's not suspense, you know. So I think sometimes we might hear podcasts like this one and we might overcorrect and do the opposite, you know? So I think there's this balance, and and listeners are probably like, how do we strike that balance? How do we strategically reveal stuff? How do we strategically keep things back? What's your two cents on that?

SPEAKER_01: 20:48

It's a great point. And yes, I think that dramatic irony is is is like a tool that's very easy to overuse. I can remember novels where you know exactly what's happened to character B, but you have to watch hundreds of pages of character A, wondering where they are, thinking they're dead. It's it's tough to get right. I think that in most contemporary fiction, unless you're trying to write like Tolstoy in War and Peace, most people accept the idea that we are going to meet and have POV access to a relatively tiny number of people. Even in a fantasy epic, we're going to have POV access to five people, maybe, maybe ten at the absolute extremes. And I think it's worth like disciplining oneself to thinking these are my windows into the story. And if I can't deliver everything that this story needs through this one POV, maybe it's the it's like the POV that's the problem. Maybe my character's too young or too disinterested or not expert enough, or doesn't know anybody who could just explain things a bit. Um you know, if there's no Obi-Wan Kenobi character to explain what the force is, you're gonna spend a huge amount of time of the reader feeling just sort of wondering what's happening. Um But once you've made and like once you've made that commitment, I'm gonna have like say, I would encourage most novels, one to three of these POV characters. Like, okay, how can I give the reader as much as possible through that that doorway, through that window, which is, you know, Harry Potter and the Harry Potter books, um, through Linus. And I find that sometimes writers um underestimate how much you can get through with a with a well-designed story where people are having conversations with a character like Linus, where letters are coming in, where there's diaries, where there's interviews. You can convey a huge amount and you can space it out in a way that feels natural, feels clear. Um, and I think that sort of seeing it like I've made this commitment to a character like Linus in from House of the Cerulean Sea. I've made that commitment. How can I get everything I need to get through this sometimes rather narrow window or you know, uh dusty window, but how can I get it all through rather than kind of breaking the frame and having just introducing sort of a one-chapter POV just to sort of convey some information that the protagonist could figure out eventually.

SPEAKER_00: 23:21

Yeah, and that's the great challenge of it, which I think this is probably why you teach character-first writing, because we need to be in the character's head and we need to kind of understand, you know, are they a native to this world? Are they brand new to this world? What do they need to know? Why would they want to know it? Right. It makes our jobs so much easier when we come in through that character lens.

SPEAKER_01: 23:40

Yeah, this is one of my big ideas. Like, I I I this is gonna sound a bit strange to some people, but I truly believe that readers learn to read your book by their relationship with the main character. And so if they don't understand why something is happening from the perspective of that main character, they don't get it. Yeah. Like, and to use your example of the man in the in the in the alleyway, and oh, it was a it was the character's father. If the if the protagonist doesn't even seem to react to that, I think many readers would just be left sort of bewildered. Like, yeah, is that meant to be important? Is the father like a shapeshifter? Yeah, like it could be anything. And I think that many writers sort of underestimate like the the the possibilities that will go through a reader's mind. Was he sort of is he like a shadow guy? Yeah, it's a good thing. I don't understand. What kind of what kind of book is this? Yeah. And without that main character, without one or two or three, or you know, if you're very ambitious, more main characters who, as things happen, they react to them, and therefore we know whether it's good or bad. And we can be happy for the character, frustrated for them. I find that even like what seems like just factual descriptions pass over readers' heads if they can't make that kind of judgment. Like you could people can be describing like what the sky looks like. And I've noticed that like readers in the in the in the workshop in the class will just say, like, what cut what what was the sky like again? I I I forgot that. Because they were looking for that, for their person to have a reaction. And without that, it it sort of doesn't quite work. Right.

SPEAKER_00: 25:10

It's not grounded anywhere.

SPEAKER_01: 25:11

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00: 25:12

Yeah, I love that so much. So if you were to kind of just boil all this down into one takeaway about this topic of keeping secrets and kind of laying the groundwork to surprise our readers, what would it be?

SPEAKER_01: 25:24

I think that you want to treat your reader like a friend. Give them as much information as you possibly can so that when your surprises and your twists and your world building arrive, they've got all the tools they need to enjoy it, to understand it, and be ready for the next part of the scene. They're reading at a normal pace, they want to keep reading. Give them the tools they need to both get it and then keep going on to the next line.

SPEAKER_00: 25:46

I love that. You have a free course about short stories you're gonna tell us about in a second. Um, but I'm guessing that is a great way to practice this kind of stuff is by writing little short stories. Is that right?

SPEAKER_01: 25:57

I think that's really good. And I think I think like many people that I know, um, uh, many of the writers I know are trying to write novels. And I think really looking at the books that you enjoy and and noticing moments that you were surprised by a reveal or some new world-building element really made you gasp. And re mentioned this earlier, Savannah, like rereading the book and saying, okay, but was I actually being surprised?

SPEAKER_00: 26:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 26:23

Or was I just piecing together elements and tools that I had already been given? I was just, it was just the final brick in the wall. I don't know what the right building analogy is. It was the final piece. I think that can be really valuable.

SPEAKER_00: 26:35

Uh I think that's so important too, because most of the time we underestimate how much information keeps us engaged. So as we're learning all these new things and um being given all the information we need, that's very satisfying because again, the experiences we're trying to piece it together. We can't do that without the information. So totally agree. But tell us about your short story course.

SPEAKER_01: 26:58

Well, I designed this course to teach some ideas about character-first writing and just on a scene level, like the scenes within a short story. It's a fun course, it's full, it's it's got 12 parts. It is self-paced. So if you do every prompt, you get the email, it comes in, you do the prompt, the next email will arrive. Or if you don't do the prompt, it will come a day later. So if you want to take it slowly, you can. Over a period of almost two weeks, you can, or you can try and do the whole thing in one wild long, you know, night-long session. And it's meant to really just show ideas about how we connect to characters, how we connect to characters in scene, how we understand in the the short amount of space you have in a short story, how we can understand backstory context, and how we can build towards something some really exciting developments.

SPEAKER_00: 27:46

That's cool. And it's free, right?

SPEAKER_01: 27:48

Completely free.

SPEAKER_00: 27:49

Tell us where to go to get that.

SPEAKER_01: 27:51

You can go to characterfirststory.com and it should come up.

SPEAKER_00: 27:55

Um we'll put that in the show notes as well. And we'll put the link to where you can find Daniel all around the internet, including his wonderful website and on social media and all that. And thank you so much, Daniel, for coming on and sharing your wisdom with us today.

SPEAKER_01: 28:07

Thank you so much. Thank you, Savannah.

SPEAKER_00: 28:10

All right, so that's it for this episode of the Fiction Writing Made Easy Podcast. Head over to Savannah Gilbo.com forward slash podcast for the complete show notes, including the resources I mentioned today, as well as bonus materials to help you implement what you've learned. And if you're ready to get more personalized guidance for your specific writing stage, whether you're just starting out, stuck somewhere in the middle of a draft, drowning in revisions, or getting ready to publish, take my free 30-second quiz at savanna gilbo.com forward slash quiz. You'll get a customized podcast playlist that'll meet you right where you're at and help you get to your next big milestone. Last but not least, make sure to follow this podcast in your podcast player of choice because I'll be back next week with another episode full of actionable tips, tools, and strategies to help you become a better writer. Until then, happy writing.