This week: Withholding Information Edited by: Storm Machine  
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“I hope you will find the cracks in the world and wedge them wider, so the light of other suns shines through; I hope you will keep the world unruly, messy, full of strange magics; I hope you will run through every open Door and tell stories when you return.”
― Alix E. Harrow, The Ten Thousand Doors of January
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| ASIN: B004PICKDS |
Product Type: Toys & Games
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I read the YA Fantasy Novel, The Ten Thousand Doors of January, and the main character, January, had a deep-seated belief through most of the book. There were clues, and that nagged at me while I turned the pages, and when the reveal came that I was right and the character’s belief was wrong, the character was devastated. I nodded, and I kept reading. I highly recommend this book. The twists are believable. The smaller mysteries do become clear within the rules of the world. The end is satisfying and solves the problems that were introduced. When I read it again, I’ll still feel the character’s journey even though I know how it’s going to end. I’ll even pay attention to the parts where I didn’t see the twist coming.
You can only withhold so much, or you leave the reader without context. While that might make things a mystery, it's also a struggle to figure out what to think for the entire story.
I remember a different first-person narrative, where the character told the reader he was playing it close to his chest. He had brokered a deal early on within the story and then had his memory wiped, and he didn’t tell the reader about any of it. Was that fair? I’m not sure. I still feel a little cheated, though the author did make up for that in the next couple books in the series.
The secret to a good mystery is to plant clues. Someone probably will figure it out - I know I'm always annoyed that my husband can figure out the end of the movie before it gets halfway through. He pulls out the nuanced clues and makes that leap to the next logical ending. I’ve told him not to tell me, and that’s mostly working.
A friend always used to say, "Every day is an adventure; close my eyes and it's a mystery." However, a mystery without proper context leaves the reader in a fog. At times, it's because the writer is in the dark while writing, and never gives the piece enough to properly ground either the reader or the writer in the world.
So how do you know how much information to give, and how much to leave out? Always in my writer's groups, we talk about being blindsided with something that we should have known earlier, and that it matters to the story to have a piece of information at a specific point or not, especially if we're in that point of view. Anything where you're in someone's head and they're deliberately hiding something becomes a liability to the narrative.
I look at my own writings, and I know where it resonates with my readers and where I have left them too much in the dark. It's taken a lot of time to figure that out. Sometimes I feel like as writers we want to be vague to allow a situation to stand for more than the specific niche that we are feeling, but maybe that niche is exactly what we need to connect to more readers.
So many things seem like a paradox, though they are not. That paradox is actually what draws readers in. If I know the world, know the mind of the main character(s), and know what's coming, why would I keep reading? Because I want to experience it. Because I want to be there when it goes the way I think it will. Because sometimes it doesn't go that way despite our best intentions.
Look back at your own writings and the stories that you love. What did they give you for information? What did they withhold? Which ones broke your trust, and which ones made you smile? That is the best way to find your path forward.
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I've never done a Mystery newsletter before, so I have no previous comments. What story has given you some great mysteries and/or twists that kept you glued to it? 
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Mystery: February 05, 2020 Issue [#9999]
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