How do you have surprises, without having confusion?

Post Reply New Topic

In writing, what I mean is, let's say I want so save something for a twist or a surprise later. In order to do that, you have to withhold information from the reader, in order to get the surprise later. But how do you save plot information for a surprise later, without the reader being confused throughout the story prior, because they are being withheld information? Is there a way to do it without creating confusion?

If the reader is a vigilant scanner of the information, then they might be able to predict the surprise before the surprise by looking out for the 'danger signs', if they are more a casual reader, then they may not see the build up to the surprise and be really surprised.

As long as the reader has not read the book backwards, something that I used to enjoy doing, I guess the way to do it would be by foreshadowing the events cognitively, putting in hints of the surprise prior to the surprise or built up a few pages before to the surprise, therefor increasing the readers adrenaline.

Examples of foreshadowing: The scenario is: that a wife is about to find his long lost husband in a woods they have been lost in for 10 years. He went missing due to, literally, going down the wrong path in the forest, he went to the forest as a 1 week trip as a simple escape and de-program and got bitten by a wild dear.
[Page 10 out of 100 pages]

John looked at the horizon in a manner of content, he breathed in the air deeply, inhaling bliss and exhaling his tension. He is ready for his adventure. He spent a few minutes looking at the forest, currently stood on a path to the forest, scanning it, and without a second thought, he walked into the wilderness, with only his bag and his own biological machine. This was surely an adventure he won't forget. [Wife's phone rings] John picks up the phone, "hello dear", "hello john, see you in a few weeks, are you sure your prepared", "yes dear, I just feel like I have gone down the wrong path : a bit : recently with work and stuff and need some time away."

[Page 30 out of 50 pages, a few weeks later]

John looked at his GPS, he realised he has gone down the wrong path in the forest. He then got bit by a dear.

Oh okay, well I don't think my problem will be the audience not understanding the twist after it happens, but not understanding the character before it happens. For example, there is a scene where a character does not shoot another character, when the reader thinks that she would. The reader will think, "why don't you shoot him and then call the police... he's just going to come after you later, so do it". The reader will think she is stupid for not doing it, or not calling the police at all.

But then later, once a twist is revealed, it will then become clear that she wanted him alive for a reason that was not revealed earlier, and also why she didn't notify the police of anything. But how do you keep the reader from thinking she was too stupid before, because they did not have that information, that there is more too her and she has a bigger plan in play?

Or there is another section where a character kills someone and the reader is going to think "well how does he expect to get away with it, he just threw his life down the toilet and is going to get caught." But later it is revealed the the murder was more pre-meditated and he has an alibi, that is a surprise, which the reader did not know about before. But how do you keep the reader from thinking he is a crazy fool before the smart alibi is revealed later?

Those are just examples, of what I mean as to how the reader can think a character is foolish or stupid, until they know more about them later, once surprises are revealed.

Perhaps place little facts and hidden motives here and there casually in the text.
I'd suggest watching movies like The Usual Suspects, or Vilarium, to study how this can be done within a story.

Oh okay, it's just thing is, if you place hints than that makes the readers so they can see things coming though, as opposed to complete and total surprise, I thought.

I saw The Usual Suspects, but that movie they actually changed what a characters face for flashbacks, but I don't think that would work for mine though.

Aside from foreshadowing, you can also make good use of symbols and themes to help the reader maybe see something coming without being sure that it will, hence the surprise. Eg: a character symbolically associated with rats being killed by a character associated with cats. So like how in GoT/ASoIaF Tywin is gutting and cleaning a deer after returning from the hunt. This foreshadows his work to destroy house Baratheon, who are symbolized by a stag on their coat of arms.

An exercise I've found helps is considering what works of fiction have surprised you in a way that seemed to work to you, and consider what works of fiction did *not* pull this kind of thing off well. Either bc the surprise was too obvious or it was too unexpected that it felt cheap or forced. M Night Shyamalan can be good for this considering how hit or miss his twists can be.

Oh okay, but symbols can't really explain hidden motivations or hidden information though, can they?

You can make a surprise seem built up instead of random by foreshadowing. Foreshadowing does not have to, but can, give the reader enough information to figure out what is actually going on. Sometimes it is sufficient to show the reader in an obviously intentional way that something doesn't quite add up and they will expect a revelation later on without being able to figure out what it is. Even if you theoretically give them enough information to anticipate the plot twist, you can hide it well enough such that most readers won't figure out what the twist will be, but just have a feeling that something unexpected is going to happen.

You can avoid readers being confused before your plot twist happens in a variety of ways. For example by giving them an alternative explanation for why things happen, that turns out to be wrong. By making an event seem insignificant until it's importance is revealed, such that the reader doesn't pay as much attention to it. By letting readers be aware that they don't know why a certain thing happened instead of misleading them about the cause. Or by making the apparent inconsistency seem intentional.
For example, if your character does something seemingly stupid, but up to that point you wrote the character as intelligent and your writing and character development was consistent, your readers may be willing to assume that it's intentional and has some purpose rather than assume it's out of character and due to poor writing. Add some small hints that the character is acting deliberately - things that would be different if they were just stupid - and most readers will expect a revelation down the line instead of assuming that the character is stupid.
However, if your writing was poor quality up until that point, the character doesn't have a clearly established personality or some other characters have been inconsistent before and you don't hint in any way that something is not quite as it seems, readers will probably think your character is just stupid or that the action is out of character and attribute it to poor writing.

A built up surprise is usually much more appreciated by readers than a totally random surprise. You can still have complete and total surprise in the sense that the reader knew something was amiss and expected a twist or revelation, but had no idea what it was and would have guessed something completely different, but once the twist happens the pieces fall into place and everything makes sense. Or you can make it such that the reader doesn't realize anything seems off but once the twist happens some things that previously seemed insignificant become meaningful. For either of this you need to leave hints though. They can be so well hidden the reader only realizes they were there once the twist happens, or they can be misleading, or just not contain the full information needed to figure out the twist, but they need to be there.

Oh okay, it's just for my story, when a character is revealed to be a villain, and it comes as a surprise, the readers are going to want an explanation. But how do you explain the background of the plot as to why this happened, just by foreshadowing? The plot is really specific so would foreshadowing alone, be enough to explain it coherently?