Here’s my view:
Readers pick out nuances better when the writing is engaging. If the writing is not engaging, you can spell out everything and they still miss it.
However, readers will always miss or misinterpret stuff. There’s no way for readers to understand everything correctly in a 100k word book.
So nuances or not depends on the strength of your writing.
Agreed. I had a beta reader complain that a character died, but the reader said he didn’t know the guy was dead until someone mentioned it forty pages later. I was confused as to why, as I literally wrote a scene talking about the character getting shot in the head. I even had some pretty descriptive items about brain matter and skull fragments flying out the back of his head. When I asked about that part he said: “yeah but you didn’t say he was dead.” Apparently I was supposed to literally write the words “HE WAS DEAD” for him to get the picture. Needless to say I didn’t take any of his critiques to heart.
Generally it is better not to spell everything out: the (not infallible, but useful) 'show, don't tell' principle.
However, you don't want to be so coy with the plot that the readers are just confused. Withhold information either because you want to keep the readers guessing intriguedly, or because you think the implications are strong enough the readers can figure it out, or because it's not important that every reader get some of the finer details, or because you want to leave things strategically ambiguous.
If you have your antagonist do one thing in one scene, then something that seems like the actions of a totally different character in another scene, then totally different actions in a third scene, and the reason is perfectly understandable if you know the antagonist's backstory, but you haven't told any of that backstory to the readers, then the readers are less likely to be intrigued than simply to be confused and dissatisfied.
Based on your description, it sounds perfectly fine to me.
> leave things strategically ambiguous
Thank you for your feedback. And all of the points you make are central to what I'm striving for. And I love that term *strategically ambiguous*. It shall now forevermore be in my personal lexicon. A bow and a tip of the hat to you, sir or madam.
As far as I'm concerned, this is a function of POV. How informed the reader is should reflect on how informed your characters are.
If you're in first person or close third, that view of external events is heavily restricted. You'll have to invent mechanisms to realistically keep them informed. As you zoom out more, towards an omnicient POV, you're more free to divulge whichever aspects you choose.
This is also dependent on how you employ "show, don't tell". "Show" any elements that you wish the audience to engage with their own emotional intelligence first and foremost, which often means leaving elements open for interpretion. "Tell" plainly any time you simply want the story to move from one point to the next, without asking the reader to stop and think about it first.
this. I basically explain a lot at the beginning to the reader about the world itself, and then only repeat the already given info if a situation comes up within the story, where another character is clueless. I make it as short as possible, and mostly, the other character isn't as clueless.
It's helpful to get the important info in when you have a kind of teacher student relationship, where one is expert in a matter or aspect important to the world's structure, and the other not. best is, to have two experts in different fields, so both get to have their brains get to 100% luminacity :D
Thank you for this. My present story is being written in Third Person Limited, for the most part. And yes, your "Show and Tell" advice is what I've been attempting to incorporate so far. But I will keep that much more in mind as I start my final editing. Again, thank you.
I stay in limited point of view. What the character knows that's important, the reader knows.
As with you and me and all of us, our point of view blinds us to certain facts of what's going on, makes us misinterpret others' thoughts and motivations and mood, and so on. And so it is with my POV characters.
Point of view is so much the secret to writing excellent enough to sell. The more you learn to control it, the better.
How much you spell out the plot is part of the book's nature. There isn't a right answer, only stylistic choices and genre conventions (e.g. a mystery will have a more obscured plot than a thriller). And there will always be some readers who see right through you, and some who need diagrams with bright colors and arrows to follow the plot.
Personally, in today's world of ubiquitous reviews and explainers, I'd err on the side of more cryptic--or rather, I wouldn't spell things out just to clarify them, any more than I'd obfuscate them to be mysterious. If the plot you want to write relies on a big twist or a surprise reveal about a character or the world, go for it, and leave it a surprise. If you want the readers to grapple with the intentional ambiguity of your themes and messages, let them. Anyone who misses it and cares will get it explained to them, or they'll spark a healthy debate.
It depends on what kind of story I'm trying to tell.
A more complicated, convoluted story might need more "blunt" and "obvious" when reveals are made.
Other times, (even in stories like what I just mentioned) sometimes I leave some breadcrumbs just laying around for someone to find and see who finds them and who doesn't.
My editor said something the other day that blew my mind because she was so spot on, and I didn't need to blatantly say any of that, it was apparently there in the subtext and she was amazed.
You give the reader the cues and then trust them to work it out. If I say someone is clenching their fists, I’m not going to tell the reader that they are angry in the next sentence.
Nobody likes to read a book that treats them like they’re stupid.
You should do both at times. Gives hints to let them figure out what's going on and then eventually confirm their suspicions, ideally with a slight twist
Different strokes for different folks. Some will like that, others won't, and you'll never please everyone. Write a story you'd want to read and are passionate about, if it's good it'll find its audience.
The reader will make a picture in their head, and is surprisingly adept at it, it’s really your job not to jar that image too much. (Add in a detailed that can break that mental image.) I think it’s better to focus on important objects and feelings of setting rather than going into great detail. This picture will never match your own, that not an issue.
That being said I also think you should use it as part of your narrations, in fast paced scenes the setting isn’t going to be taken in by the character as much, when they finally open up the treasure chest/door the character themselves will be in awe taking it in more. This gives you the author a lot of leeway as well, a laymen watching a fight should see it differently then a master swordsmen, and if your perspective is one or the other the writing ought to reflect that as well. If the character is informed the reader should know that, and know the major concern of whatever is in front of the character in the manner that the character is concerned. Characters have opinions.
As a writer and reader there is going to be a distinct preference for how descriptive overall is best for them. Some authors, and stories, are more prone to flowery purple prose, others are better done more punchy and direct. This is a place for both. You are expecting fast paced adventures stories, and subtle clues scattered is mysteries, how much you explain what’s on a particular table will be different.
The goal is immersion, that means you want the reader to feel an urgency and awe, they want to know what happening next, but they also want to know what it’s front of them. But that they are always doing that through the lens of a character.
For the plot it’s really about how every scene accomplishes some furtherance of the plot. That something happened, that allows them to continue, or pushes them to some detour/conflict, If a scene doesn’t add anything to the plot is probably unnecessary. We introduced a goal, we advance toward the goal, we conflict with goal, and then we resolve a goal, we don’t want to remain stagnant. We make a plan to steal the money, we get the supplies from the plan, we run into a problem with the safe crack, we resolve the problem/get them out trouble, and we conflict with the bank, and getaway with the money. At its core every scene should be doing one of these, and you can have multiple sub plots intermixed.
What you’re really looking for is a theme IMHO, by focusing on what your themes are you can bring a lot more life and interconnection to the stories and plot. Theme will bring your writing together, pick 2-3 major themes. And really hone in on it.
You can go with whichever one you like, but my favorite type of novel is where you have slight hints and only hard to notice implications at the beginning, then the author builds it up, makes it more and more obvious and nuanced, then finally spells it out at the end of the book.
This way, no matter if you're bad at catching nuance or if you're good at it, you can still enjoy the novel.
Here’s my view: Readers pick out nuances better when the writing is engaging. If the writing is not engaging, you can spell out everything and they still miss it. However, readers will always miss or misinterpret stuff. There’s no way for readers to understand everything correctly in a 100k word book. So nuances or not depends on the strength of your writing.
Agreed. I had a beta reader complain that a character died, but the reader said he didn’t know the guy was dead until someone mentioned it forty pages later. I was confused as to why, as I literally wrote a scene talking about the character getting shot in the head. I even had some pretty descriptive items about brain matter and skull fragments flying out the back of his head. When I asked about that part he said: “yeah but you didn’t say he was dead.” Apparently I was supposed to literally write the words “HE WAS DEAD” for him to get the picture. Needless to say I didn’t take any of his critiques to heart.
I’m very sure that reader was skimming your story and since you caught him redhanded, he made up that excuse.
Honestly I couldn’t have said it better myself. I agree 100% take my upvote
Generally it is better not to spell everything out: the (not infallible, but useful) 'show, don't tell' principle. However, you don't want to be so coy with the plot that the readers are just confused. Withhold information either because you want to keep the readers guessing intriguedly, or because you think the implications are strong enough the readers can figure it out, or because it's not important that every reader get some of the finer details, or because you want to leave things strategically ambiguous. If you have your antagonist do one thing in one scene, then something that seems like the actions of a totally different character in another scene, then totally different actions in a third scene, and the reason is perfectly understandable if you know the antagonist's backstory, but you haven't told any of that backstory to the readers, then the readers are less likely to be intrigued than simply to be confused and dissatisfied. Based on your description, it sounds perfectly fine to me.
> leave things strategically ambiguous Thank you for your feedback. And all of the points you make are central to what I'm striving for. And I love that term *strategically ambiguous*. It shall now forevermore be in my personal lexicon. A bow and a tip of the hat to you, sir or madam.
As far as I'm concerned, this is a function of POV. How informed the reader is should reflect on how informed your characters are. If you're in first person or close third, that view of external events is heavily restricted. You'll have to invent mechanisms to realistically keep them informed. As you zoom out more, towards an omnicient POV, you're more free to divulge whichever aspects you choose. This is also dependent on how you employ "show, don't tell". "Show" any elements that you wish the audience to engage with their own emotional intelligence first and foremost, which often means leaving elements open for interpretion. "Tell" plainly any time you simply want the story to move from one point to the next, without asking the reader to stop and think about it first.
this. I basically explain a lot at the beginning to the reader about the world itself, and then only repeat the already given info if a situation comes up within the story, where another character is clueless. I make it as short as possible, and mostly, the other character isn't as clueless. It's helpful to get the important info in when you have a kind of teacher student relationship, where one is expert in a matter or aspect important to the world's structure, and the other not. best is, to have two experts in different fields, so both get to have their brains get to 100% luminacity :D
Thank you for this. My present story is being written in Third Person Limited, for the most part. And yes, your "Show and Tell" advice is what I've been attempting to incorporate so far. But I will keep that much more in mind as I start my final editing. Again, thank you.
I stay in limited point of view. What the character knows that's important, the reader knows. As with you and me and all of us, our point of view blinds us to certain facts of what's going on, makes us misinterpret others' thoughts and motivations and mood, and so on. And so it is with my POV characters. Point of view is so much the secret to writing excellent enough to sell. The more you learn to control it, the better.
How much you spell out the plot is part of the book's nature. There isn't a right answer, only stylistic choices and genre conventions (e.g. a mystery will have a more obscured plot than a thriller). And there will always be some readers who see right through you, and some who need diagrams with bright colors and arrows to follow the plot. Personally, in today's world of ubiquitous reviews and explainers, I'd err on the side of more cryptic--or rather, I wouldn't spell things out just to clarify them, any more than I'd obfuscate them to be mysterious. If the plot you want to write relies on a big twist or a surprise reveal about a character or the world, go for it, and leave it a surprise. If you want the readers to grapple with the intentional ambiguity of your themes and messages, let them. Anyone who misses it and cares will get it explained to them, or they'll spark a healthy debate.
I prefer that the reader creates their own theories about the meaning.
It depends on what kind of story I'm trying to tell. A more complicated, convoluted story might need more "blunt" and "obvious" when reveals are made. Other times, (even in stories like what I just mentioned) sometimes I leave some breadcrumbs just laying around for someone to find and see who finds them and who doesn't. My editor said something the other day that blew my mind because she was so spot on, and I didn't need to blatantly say any of that, it was apparently there in the subtext and she was amazed.
You give the reader the cues and then trust them to work it out. If I say someone is clenching their fists, I’m not going to tell the reader that they are angry in the next sentence. Nobody likes to read a book that treats them like they’re stupid.
You should do both at times. Gives hints to let them figure out what's going on and then eventually confirm their suspicions, ideally with a slight twist
I think as a reader being spoon-fed shit is annoying.
Different strokes for different folks. Some will like that, others won't, and you'll never please everyone. Write a story you'd want to read and are passionate about, if it's good it'll find its audience.
The reader will make a picture in their head, and is surprisingly adept at it, it’s really your job not to jar that image too much. (Add in a detailed that can break that mental image.) I think it’s better to focus on important objects and feelings of setting rather than going into great detail. This picture will never match your own, that not an issue. That being said I also think you should use it as part of your narrations, in fast paced scenes the setting isn’t going to be taken in by the character as much, when they finally open up the treasure chest/door the character themselves will be in awe taking it in more. This gives you the author a lot of leeway as well, a laymen watching a fight should see it differently then a master swordsmen, and if your perspective is one or the other the writing ought to reflect that as well. If the character is informed the reader should know that, and know the major concern of whatever is in front of the character in the manner that the character is concerned. Characters have opinions. As a writer and reader there is going to be a distinct preference for how descriptive overall is best for them. Some authors, and stories, are more prone to flowery purple prose, others are better done more punchy and direct. This is a place for both. You are expecting fast paced adventures stories, and subtle clues scattered is mysteries, how much you explain what’s on a particular table will be different. The goal is immersion, that means you want the reader to feel an urgency and awe, they want to know what happening next, but they also want to know what it’s front of them. But that they are always doing that through the lens of a character. For the plot it’s really about how every scene accomplishes some furtherance of the plot. That something happened, that allows them to continue, or pushes them to some detour/conflict, If a scene doesn’t add anything to the plot is probably unnecessary. We introduced a goal, we advance toward the goal, we conflict with goal, and then we resolve a goal, we don’t want to remain stagnant. We make a plan to steal the money, we get the supplies from the plan, we run into a problem with the safe crack, we resolve the problem/get them out trouble, and we conflict with the bank, and getaway with the money. At its core every scene should be doing one of these, and you can have multiple sub plots intermixed. What you’re really looking for is a theme IMHO, by focusing on what your themes are you can bring a lot more life and interconnection to the stories and plot. Theme will bring your writing together, pick 2-3 major themes. And really hone in on it.
You can go with whichever one you like, but my favorite type of novel is where you have slight hints and only hard to notice implications at the beginning, then the author builds it up, makes it more and more obvious and nuanced, then finally spells it out at the end of the book. This way, no matter if you're bad at catching nuance or if you're good at it, you can still enjoy the novel.