November 11, 2025 • 29 mins
Discover why clarity (not secrecy) is the key to keeping your readers engaged, curious, and emotionally invested in your story.
Writers often think suspense means withholding information, but what if the opposite were true?
In this episode, I'm joined by Daniel David Wallace, author, writing teacher, and founder of the annual Escape the Plot Forest Summit, to discuss why holding back details can leave readers confused or disconnected rather than curious.
Daniel explains how sharing the right information at the right time builds trust, deepens emotion, and makes every twist hit exactly the way you intended.
Here’s what we cover:
[02:25] Why trying to keep readers guessing for too long kills tension, and what actually makes a mystery feel exciting instead of confusing.
[06:35] How the fear of being ‘too obvious’ causes writers to hide key details, and why showing your hand sooner can keep readers even more engaged.
[10:00] What The Hunger Games can teach us about foreshadowing in fiction through the famous berry scene.
[18:00] What it really means to treat your reader like a friend, and how building trust keeps people invested in your story from start to finish.
[20:00] Where writers go wrong with multi-POV—and why including more POVs isn't always the way to make your story clear to readers
If you've ever worried that giving too much away will ruin your story, this episode will change how you think about suspense, clarity, and reader trust.
🔗 Links mentioned in this episode:
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_01 (00:00):
I think that you want to treat your reader like a
(00:01):
friend.
Give them as much information asyou possibly can so that when
your surprises and your twistsand your world building arrive,
they've got all the tools theyneed to enjoy it, to understand
it, and be ready for the nextpart of the scene.
They're reading at a normalpace, they want to keep reading.
Give them the tools they need toboth get it and then keep going
on to the next line.
SPEAKER_00 (00:24):
Welcome to the Fiction Writing Made Easy
Podcast.
My name is Savannah Gilbo, andI'm here to help you write a
story that works.
I want to prove to you thatwriting a novel doesn't have to
be overwhelming.
So each week I'll bring you abrand new episode with simple,
actionable, and step-by-stepstrategies that you can
implement in your writing rightaway.
So whether you're brand new towriting or more of a seasoned
(00:45):
author looking to improve yourcraft, this podcast is for you.
So pick up a pen and let's getstarted.
In today's episode, we'retackling one of the biggest
misconceptions in fictionwriting, and that is the idea
that keeping secrets from yourreaders creates suspense.
And spoiler alert, it usuallydoesn't work that way.
Now, today I have a very specialguest.
(01:07):
His name is Daniel DavidWallace, and he is a
storytelling master as well asthe creative mind behind the
Escape the Plot Forest Summit.
And in this episode, Daniel andI are exploring the art of
revealing just the right amountof information to keep your
readers hooked without givingaway the entire story.
We discuss why treating yourreaders like friends rather than
enemies can transform yourwriting and create a more
(01:29):
engaging experience.
Plus, we'll share practical tipson how to strategically plant
clues and build suspense in yournovel.
So grab a notebook and let'sdive right into my conversation
with Daniel David Wallace.
SPEAKER_01 (01:41):
Hi, Savannah.
It's great to be here.
Such an honor.
SPEAKER_00 (01:44):
I'm so excited to have you here.
And we have a hot topic todiscuss today.
But first, can you let myaudience know who you are, what
you do, and things like that?
SPEAKER_01 (01:51):
Of course.
Um my name is Daniel DavidWallace.
I help writers write novels.
I help people um try to gettheir vision on the page and
actually finish that story.
I'm also the host of the Escapethe Plot Forest Summit every
October.
It's been a fantasticexperience.
And you've been such an amazingspeaker.
I'm always it's always greatwhen you're able to come back
(02:13):
and speak and speak at thatevent.
I'm a busy parent.
I'm an ambivalent pet owner.
Yeah, uh, it's great to be ableto do work that I really love.
SPEAKER_00 (02:22):
So we are here to talk about holding things back
or keeping secrets from readersand why we shouldn't do that,
which I know is probably gonnasurprise a lot of listeners to
hear us say you shouldn't keepsecrets from your readers.
So, with that being said, wheredo you want to kick off, Daniel?
SPEAKER_01 (02:38):
I wondered if we could talk about mystery not
mystery novels first of all.
SPEAKER_00 (02:42):
Yes.
SPEAKER_01 (02:42):
That's often where I see this, where it's the most
visible.
I'm thinking of novels wherethere is an amateur detective, a
single genius police officertrying to solve a crime.
And when I think back to thebooks that I really love in
those genres and that style ofwriting, what I remember is that
(03:03):
the clues are just thrown at thereader like confetti.
From the very beginning, thereader is getting all kinds of
hints and possibilities.
Um, someone will say, Oh, thevicar has a real temper, and the
reader thinks, oh, that'simportant.
I should I should bear that inmind.
There is so much being presentedto us that could, that seems
(03:25):
like it could be relevant to themurder.
And in contrast, what I see manyauthors who are working on their
book do instead is operate witha kind of fear that if I reveal
too much, I'm giving away theending.
And the reader will get bored orthe reader will just sort of
think they've got everything.
And so instead, it feels likerather than this rich, intense
(03:50):
world of clues and red herringsand gossip, we're instead kind
of watching this character kindof just walk around town.
They spend a lot of time kind ofwalking 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 thosescenes and then walking around
town, then that's fine.
(04:11):
But the end goal should be notthat.
The goal should be to kind oftry to deliver as much as
possible to the reader as soonas possible.
That's kind of where I came inwith this topic, where when I
started noticing the most.
What do you think about that?
SPEAKER_00 (04:24):
I mean, I see very similar things, and we could
probably list a thousandexamples of when it's done not
well, and we can we can do that.
Um, but I like to always thinkabout the reader's experience.
So, kind of like what you werejust saying, the fun part of
reading stories like that is tohave all the clues surrounding
you and the true clues and thefalse clues.
And then we have to be cleverand figure out which ones are
(04:47):
real, which ones are fake.
Am I gonna guess it before thedetective?
You know, that's part of theexperience that we want.
So, to your point, when I seethis done poorly, it's almost
like, yes, the reader has a lotof questions because there's not
a lot on the page.
And so we're we're askingquestions, but they're not the
right questions.
We're kind of asking, like toyour example of a character
walking around town, we're like,what's the point of this?
(05:08):
Like, what are we doing here?
Instead of, oh, I wonder if it'sgonna be the vicar or if it's
gonna be Miss Susie or, youknow, whoever, whoever.
SPEAKER_01 (05:16):
So Yeah, exactly.
And I think that uh on a reallybasic practical level, I think
that many writers, let me getthis, get this the right way
around.
Like, underestimate how muchinformation the typical reader
needs.
That the typical reader oftenwill just miss something that
(05:37):
that the writer thinks they'vemade very clear.
They will they will not evenremember a character that that
was mentioned 30, 40 pages ago.
Um, the reader put the book downand dealt with some kind of
crisis in the kitchen and cameback three days later.
SPEAKER_00 (05:51):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (05:52):
And and so I think that often writers are worried
about being too obvious, puttingit on too thick.
And I always want to say, no,I'll be obvious.
SPEAKER_00 (06:01):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (06:02):
Um, be lay it on way too thick.
Because you can always dial thatstuff down.
SPEAKER_00 (06:07):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (06:08):
If I showed you a really compelling murder mystery
that I had written, and yousaid, wonderful, on the edge of
my seat, couldn't stop reading,but I did figure out who the
killer was at three-quartermark.
Well, I'd much rather have thatproblem 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 afun read.
Like that, I think, is a muchbigger problem that writers
(06:31):
should deal with.
SPEAKER_00 (06:32):
Yeah, I totally agree.
And, you know, it's funnybecause I think this comes from
a place of fear sometimes,right?
It's like you don't want to getit wrong because of this, you
don't want to get it wrongbecause of that.
And so this idea of like, how dowe know how much to put in, when
to put in, that's um also kindof just the challenge for us
writers and how we get better atour craft is dissecting stories
like you're talking about andthen applying that to our own
(06:54):
work.
And I always say somethingsimilar to you is that in your
first draft, be obvious, likelay it on as thick as you want,
put all the clues in therebecause you're probably still
not even doing it to the extentthat you need to.
You know, that's what I see.
Do you see the same thing?
SPEAKER_01 (07:08):
Absolutely.
Like often the person who says,I just I wanted to shock you.
I wanted to make it so obviousthat you would be disgusted.
And I say, I thought it was apretty well-written scene.
Like, I I would have put a bitmore in, to be honest.
Yeah, yeah.
And I think when you see whenyou mentioned about fear is
really valid, and I think thatone fear many people have is
(07:29):
they picture like a bookreviewer or an angry person on
Goodreads, like mocking thembecause they weren't, it's a bit
hard to put into words, but likeaustere enough, uh subtle
enough.
And I think that it's it'sreally worth trying to look at
that fear and saying the onlyreason that mean person would
(07:51):
find the book is because it hadbeen loved by many people and
had gone through the wholepublishing process.
And if that one grumpy person onGoodreads doesn't like it and
they figured out the murdererearly on, which I see, of
course, in published books thatare incredibly successful, where
I didn't spot the twist at all,and I'll see something I noticed
(08:12):
it in chapter two.
That I think that that fear ofbeing found out, of not being a
good enough artist, I think thatit's really worth acknowledging
that fear, but realizing thatthere are there are more
important things to get right.
You can't please that grumpyperson on Goodreads, but you
could write a story that yeah,that has the interiority, has
(08:32):
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 Iunderstand sort of where I am,
what the story's doing.
And I think that's really that'sa good goal.
SPEAKER_00 (08:45):
Yeah.
Everyone's gonna get that onestar review too.
I think that's just the natureof the game.
So, you know, we can think aboutit like, are we gonna let that
fear of that one star review orthat comment that we're not
being deft enough or whatever,is that what's gonna drive us
forward, or is it this desire tofinish our books and share it
with the, you know, bunch ofother people that are really
gonna like it?
So totally agree.
(09:06):
But I know something you talkabout is like this idea of going
at it to outwit our readersversus kind of bringing the
reader along with us andtreating them like friends.
Can you talk about that?
SPEAKER_01 (09:16):
Well, there's so much to say about this.
I think that one thing on apurely mechanical level is when
you see writers preparing atwist, when you see someone
preparing a surprise, it's notdifficult to go back and look
through the book and just seehow much work they did to
foreshadow, prepare, and justclarify like what is happening.
(09:41):
And I think that some writersfeel like my job is to genuinely
shock the reader or surprisethem.
And obviously it's good to beit's good to surprise the
reader, but on a deeper level,what we see in a lot of
successful novels is that thereis 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
(10:05):
bring up.
And one is the ending of theHunger Games.
Sorry, this is a bit of aspoiler, but the book's been
around around for a while.
The climactic scene of the ofthe Hunger Games, the original
novel, is that Katniss producesthese poison berries that she uh
threatens to to consume and thusstymie the plans of the game
makers.
I mean, it's a famous moment.
(10:26):
And someone another teacher, TimStorm, showed me this, and I've
I've always been haunted by it.
Is if you just search for theword berries in the book, you
see dozens of moments.
Berries are in the very firstchapter before she's even gone
off to the games.
She's talking about berries, andshe discusses at length through
the book all the differentthings that this character knows
(10:46):
about berries.
We see the poison berries beingused in some, so we know they
actually are fatal.
We sort of see like how youcould get confused about having
them and who you know, adifferent someone could have
them and not realize they hadthem.
And it's it's really worth sortof breaking down, like, okay,
you want this finale to workinstantly.
So the reader, as soon as thereader gets to that moment, she
has the berries in the hand, shesort of says, like, let's eat
(11:08):
them.
The reader is not sitting therethinking, wait, are the berries
actually going to kill them?
Like, how long will that take?
Could they could it could it'sgonna take two, three days?
Like, that's not very dramatic.
You want the reader to instantlyjust be on the page with the
protagonist.
And what I think that novelshows is you've got to give the
reader so much dozens ofmentions of berries, and and and
dramatizing it, not just talkingabout it, but dramatizing it.
(11:31):
These berries really do killpeople, 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 murdermystery, but it's just just to
make that scene work, you've gotto treat the reader like they
need they that you're bringingthem along.
And instead of thinking, I'mworried that there's someone
(11:54):
here who's noticed that we'vetalked about berries a lot
halfway through the HungerGames.
I they're gonna they're gonnaguess what the ending is, um,
you know, which nobody, which noone does.
SPEAKER_00 (12:03):
Yeah, I love your point that it's we get at the
end, we have all the clarity weneed for the impact.
So we have all the information,which is why it lands.
It's not landing and it's notsurprising because we just
withheld everything, you know.
Um, so I think that's such agreat example for readers.
And you know that I've studiedthe Harry Potter book, Ad
Nauseum at this point.
So it's the same thing there.
(12:24):
Like, how many times do we seeSnape, who is our red herring,
who's directly in front ofProfessor Quirrell, who's the
bad guy?
So I would encourage anyonewho's listening and thinking
that this berry topic or theProfessor Quirrell thing is
interesting, go look at yourfavorite 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 startputting in words into the find,
and you'll be, I think, stunnedhow many times, just and not
even just like the synonym, butjust 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 andthe Cerulean Sea, where the
characters literally have thesame conversation multiple
times.
It doesn't feel boring, itdoesn't feel like way, like, am
I being insulted, or does itreally is the writer not think
I'm getting it?
You feel grateful, you feellike, oh, the stakes have now
(13:21):
risen, the deadline is gettingcloser, the the nature of these
kids' magical powers is growingmore obvious, apparent, our
protagonist is getting more andmore conflicted, and yet, and so
then the the the uh the othercharacters come in and Linus and
Arthur will have essentially thesame conversation, but now it's
getting more powerful.
And this can be done in a verylike in a I want to really
(13:43):
stress like in a very simple,direct way.
It literally is the sameconversation.
There are other moments when thechildren will take Linus on a
similar kind of a game,adventure game, and each time
it's slightly different, but youyou understand like what is
happening because these thingsare being repeated.
Yeah, and I think that um manywriters, I don't want to be like
(14:05):
too controversial here, but likeI sometimes think that plot
structure advice can concealfrom writers how much is just
staying the same, yeah, sameconversations, the same doubts,
um, the same in House of theTrillian C, the same letters to
his his bosses where he'sbasically saying the same thing
each time, but it's just thestakes are rising, and so the
reader's getting more tense.
So, well, how is this all gonnawork out?
(14:27):
I think that that can be reallypowerful.
SPEAKER_00 (14:29):
I do too.
And I think as a listener, Imight be thinking, okay, I get
this in theory.
Is there this magic ratio oftimes I need to say something?
Because you know people aregonna 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 isreally like a conventional
surprise, you you can, I think,see like a rule of three, you
know, in the in the house in theTrillian Sea, there is a plot
thread.
This is not really a spoiler,but there is a seller.
(15:01):
And I counted how many timesdoes 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 becauseit's pretty straightforward.
We're visiting an old house,there is a room, Linus has never
been shown, he doesn't know howto get in.
It's not that many times.
When I see um a book dosomething where the reader is
(15:24):
going to be really tested, Idon't know what the top number
is, but it's a lot.
In the the sci-fi novel AVictory is greater than death by
Charlie Jane Anders, the thevillain has this incredible
power where when he I'm gonnathis is a bit of a spoiler, but
it's it's not a huge spoiler.
The villain has this incrediblepower where if he kills you,
(15:46):
that your friends hate you afterdeath.
And that is kind of like astrange idea.
It's not you you've never seenit before.
It sort of doesn't really makesense in terms of physics, like
how is that possible?
Because he's like literally heis actually like zapping people,
how's he changed people's minds?
And Anders goes through exampleafter example.
(16:06):
We see multiple people taken outby this villain, and at first
it's just it's just described tous, oh then I disliked him, even
though he was my friend.
And you think that doesn't makesense.
Like, how's that possible?
What happened?
Yeah, like what they must beshould be confused.
And and Anders shows us thismultiple times, getting closer
and closer to our protagonist,until in the final scene, it is
(16:27):
the protagonist and her bestfriends against this guy.
And you can believe that at thatpoint I'm really on the edge of
my seat because I know all theparameters, I understand what
will happen if the you know thelaser goes off.
But it's such an odd idea thatif Anna has just said, you know,
halfway point, by the way, he'sgot this magical power, it's
(16:47):
pretty bad.
And then we got to the finaleand he's like firing his laser
around, you just think, like,really?
Like, yeah, can you just talkyourself out of it?
Like, I don't, and so at leastseven mentions, I feel like.
SPEAKER_00 (16:58):
Yeah, and it wouldn't have the weight too at
the finale if you only mentionedit once, because we would be
like, I don't know, is thisgonna be a problem?
Are we risking the friendship?
We don't know.
And that's something I like tothink about too is like, why do
we do the things we do?
And back to your your pointearlier, you said sometimes
readers like we're alreadyabsorbing other things in the
story.
So we're not always gonnaremember that you mentioned the
(17:20):
seller in house of the ceruleansea back in chapter two, if
we're in chapter 17.
Um, but other times it's like weneed to be reminded so that we
understand what's going on, whatthe stakes are.
And I love that you brought upthe similar conversations at
different points, you know,because that is how life works
too.
If if the stakes in our own lifeare raised, then it's like,
well, what are we gonna do aboutour family?
What are we gonna do about ourhouse?
(17:41):
What are we gonna do about ourjobs?
Right.
So it just makes it all feelmore cohesive and real.
And I think um, yeah, I thinkthe key thing I'm hearing over
and over is like, put in morethan you think if I'm a
listener.
Put in more stuff than youthink, more clues, more
information, and give us thoseparameters, 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, likenot looking at the reader as
like, I don't want to say anyonetruly does this, but I think
people fall into this idea ofthe reader is like their their
enemy.
Yeah.
They need to outwit the readersomehow, they need to hold back
information from the reader sothat they've got a story.
(18:20):
Um, your example of the strangerjust walking down the street,
holding back that it's someonethey already know for no reason,
really, just to create tension.
Um you whereas instead lookingat like um the reader as our
friend would like all theinformation we can provide, and
they're still not gonna know whothe killer is.
(18:42):
I mean, these Agatha Christienovels where you've can you've
been given endless clues.
I mean, at least for me, I don'tguess who it is, because there's
always more clues, or there'sthere's a clue that you didn't
think about.
Even a story like The House inthe in the Cerulean Sea, that's
not really about twists exactly.
It's not about reveals, but thepower comes from seeing the
character, the main character,change and actually do
(19:05):
something.
The thing that he's been puttingoff and avoiding the whole
story.
That's what gives it its power.
And the reader has to have comealong on the ride to do that.
And I think that many writerssort of underestimate that that
element of writing.
SPEAKER_00 (19:20):
Right.
I agree.
I think, yeah, it's such aninteresting topic that could we
could talk about this by genretoo.
Like there's so many differentways we could dig into it.
But I think what we also need toremember if we're writing these
kind of stories is we want tohave the effect that you're
talking about.
We want that power.
And like you said, if we don'tinclude all the information,
it's gonna rob our stories ofthat power.
(19:41):
But also our job is to getskilled at misdirection and it's
to get skilled at knowing how touse these other tools so that we
can have the effect we want andnot 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 weretalking about earlier kind of
made me think about usingdifferent point of views,
because I can feel almost I canfeel 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 myantagonist point of view.
I'm gonna include all the sidecharacters' point of view.
It's almost like a knee-jerk inthe other way.
And then you have to think aboutthe more point of views you
(20:16):
include sometimes, that alsoruins the suspense.
Because if we're showing theantagonist's point of view and
we know what their plan is, weknow what's coming, and then you
take us back into theprotagonist's point of view, and
they're like, we don't knowwhat's coming.
That's dramatic irony.
It's not suspense, you know.
So I think sometimes we mighthear podcasts like this one and
we might overcorrect and do theopposite, you know?
(20:37):
So I think there's this balance,and and listeners are probably
like, how do we strike thatbalance?
How do we strategically revealstuff?
How do we strategically keepthings back?
What's your two cents on that?
SPEAKER_01 (20:48):
It's a great point.
And yes, I think that dramaticirony is is is like a tool
that's very easy to overuse.
I can remember novels where youknow exactly what's happened to
character B, but you have towatch hundreds of pages of
character A, wondering wherethey are, thinking they're dead.
It's it's tough to get right.
I think that in mostcontemporary fiction, unless
(21:09):
you're trying to write likeTolstoy in War and Peace, most
people accept the idea that weare going to meet and have POV
access to a relatively tinynumber of people.
Even in a fantasy epic, we'regoing to have POV access to five
people, maybe, maybe ten at theabsolute extremes.
(21:30):
And I think it's worth likedisciplining oneself to thinking
these are my windows into thestory.
And if I can't delivereverything that this story needs
through this one POV, maybe it'sthe it's like the POV that's the
problem.
Maybe my character's too youngor too disinterested or not
(21:51):
expert enough, or doesn't knowanybody who could just explain
things a bit.
Um you know, if there's noObi-Wan Kenobi character to
explain what the force is,you're gonna spend a huge amount
of time of the reader feelingjust sort of wondering what's
happening.
Um But once you've made and likeonce you've made that
commitment, I'm gonna have likesay, I would encourage most
(22:15):
novels, one to three of thesePOV characters.
Like, okay, how can I give thereader as much as possible
through that that doorway,through that window, which is,
you know, Harry Potter and theHarry Potter books, um, through
Linus.
And I find that sometimeswriters um underestimate how
much you can get through with awith a well-designed story where
(22:37):
people are having conversationswith a character like Linus,
where letters are coming in,where there's diaries, where
there's interviews.
You can convey a huge amount andyou can space it out in a way
that feels natural, feels clear.
Um, and I think that sort ofseeing it like I've made this
commitment to a character likeLinus in from House of the
(22:58):
Cerulean Sea.
I've made that commitment.
How can I get everything I needto get through this sometimes
rather narrow window or youknow, uh dusty window, but how
can I get it all through ratherthan kind of breaking the frame
and having just introducing sortof a one-chapter POV just to
sort of convey some informationthat the protagonist could
(23:20):
figure out eventually.
SPEAKER_00 (23:21):
Yeah, and that's the great challenge of it, which I
think this is probably why youteach character-first writing,
because we need to be in thecharacter's head and we need to
kind of understand, you know,are they a native to this world?
Are they brand new to thisworld?
What do they need to know?
Why would they want to know it?
Right.
It makes our jobs so much easierwhen 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 sounda bit strange to some people,
but I truly believe that readerslearn to read your book by their
relationship with the maincharacter.
And so if they don't understandwhy something is happening from
the perspective of that maincharacter, they don't get it.
Yeah.
Like, and to use your example ofthe man in the in the in the
(24:01):
alleyway, and oh, it was a itwas the character's father.
If the if the protagonistdoesn't even seem to react to
that, I think many readers wouldjust be left sort of bewildered.
Like, yeah, is that meant to beimportant?
Is the father like ashapeshifter?
Yeah, like it could be anything.
And I think that many writerssort of underestimate like the
the the possibilities that willgo through a reader's mind.
Was he sort of is he like ashadow guy?
(24:23):
Yeah, it's a good thing.
I don't understand.
What kind of what kind of bookis this?
Yeah.
And without that main character,without one or two or three, or
you know, if you're veryambitious, more main characters
who, as things happen, theyreact to them, and therefore we
know whether it's good or bad.
And we can be happy for thecharacter, frustrated for them.
I find that even like what seemslike just factual descriptions
(24:48):
pass over readers' heads if theycan't make that kind of
judgment.
Like you could people can bedescribing like what the sky
looks like.
And I've noticed that likereaders in the in the in the
workshop in the class will justsay, like, what cut what what
was the sky like again?
I I I forgot that.
Because they were looking forthat, for their person to have a
reaction.
And without that, it it sort ofdoesn't quite work.
(25:08):
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 justboil all this down into one
takeaway about this topic ofkeeping secrets and kind of
laying the groundwork tosurprise 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 asyou possibly can so that when
your surprises and your twistsand your world building arrive,
they've got all the tools theyneed to enjoy it, to understand
it, and be ready for the nextpart of the scene.
They're reading at a normalpace, they want to keep reading.
Give them the tools they need toboth get it and then keep going
(25:45):
on to the next line.
SPEAKER_00 (25:46):
I love that.
You have a free course aboutshort stories you're gonna tell
us about in a second.
Um, but I'm guessing that is agreat way to practice this kind
of stuff is by writing littleshort stories.
Is that right?
SPEAKER_01 (25:57):
I think that's really good.
And I think I think like manypeople that I know, um, uh, many
of the writers I know are tryingto write novels.
And I think really looking atthe books that you enjoy and and
noticing moments that you weresurprised by a reveal or some
new world-building elementreally made you gasp.
And re mentioned this earlier,Savannah, like rereading the
(26:19):
book and saying, okay, but was Iactually being surprised?
SPEAKER_00 (26:22):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (26:23):
Or was I just piecing together elements and
tools that I had already beengiven?
I was just, it was just thefinal brick in the wall.
I don't know what the rightbuilding analogy is.
It was the final piece.
I think that can be reallyvaluable.
SPEAKER_00 (26:35):
Uh I think that's so important too, because most of
the time we underestimate howmuch information keeps us
engaged.
So as we're learning all thesenew things and um being given
all the information we need,that's very satisfying because
again, the experiences we'retrying to piece it together.
We can't do that without theinformation.
So totally agree.
But tell us about your shortstory course.
SPEAKER_01 (26:58):
Well, I designed this course to teach some ideas
about character-first writingand 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, youget the email, it comes in, you
do the prompt, the next emailwill arrive.
Or if you don't do the prompt,it will come a day later.
(27:19):
So if you want to take itslowly, you can.
Over a period of almost twoweeks, you can, or you can try
and do the whole thing in onewild long, you know, night-long
session.
And it's meant to really justshow ideas about how we connect
to characters, how we connect tocharacters in scene, how we
understand in the the shortamount of space you have in a
short story, how we canunderstand backstory context,
(27:42):
and how we can build towardssomething 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 whereyou can find Daniel all around
the internet, including hiswonderful 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 EasyPodcast.
Head over to Savannah Gilbo.comforward slash podcast for the
complete show notes, includingthe resources I mentioned today,
as well as bonus materials tohelp you implement what you've
learned.
And if you're ready to get morepersonalized guidance for your
specific writing stage, whetheryou're just starting out, stuck
(28:30):
somewhere in the middle of adraft, drowning in revisions, or
getting ready to publish, takemy free 30-second quiz at
savanna gilbo.com forward slashquiz.
You'll get a customized podcastplaylist that'll meet you right
where you're at and help you getto your next big milestone.
Last but not least, make sure tofollow this podcast in your
podcast player of choice becauseI'll be back next week with
(28:51):
another episode full ofactionable tips, tools, and
strategies to help you become abetter writer.
Until then, happy writing.
I think that you want to treat your reader like a
(00:01):
friend.
Give them as much information asyou possibly can so that when
your surprises and your twistsand your world building arrive,
they've got all the tools theyneed to enjoy it, to understand
it, and be ready for the nextpart of the scene.
They're reading at a normalpace, they want to keep reading.
Give them the tools they need toboth get it and then keep going
on to the next line.
SPEAKER_00 (00:24):
Welcome to the Fiction Writing Made Easy
Podcast.
My name is Savannah Gilbo, andI'm here to help you write a
story that works.
I want to prove to you thatwriting a novel doesn't have to
be overwhelming.
So each week I'll bring you abrand new episode with simple,
actionable, and step-by-stepstrategies that you can
implement in your writing rightaway.
So whether you're brand new towriting or more of a seasoned
(00:45):
author looking to improve yourcraft, this podcast is for you.
So pick up a pen and let's getstarted.
In today's episode, we'retackling one of the biggest
misconceptions in fictionwriting, and that is the idea
that keeping secrets from yourreaders creates suspense.
And spoiler alert, it usuallydoesn't work that way.
Now, today I have a very specialguest.
(01:07):
His name is Daniel DavidWallace, and he is a
storytelling master as well asthe creative mind behind the
Escape the Plot Forest Summit.
And in this episode, Daniel andI are exploring the art of
revealing just the right amountof information to keep your
readers hooked without givingaway the entire story.
We discuss why treating yourreaders like friends rather than
enemies can transform yourwriting and create a more
(01:29):
engaging experience.
Plus, we'll share practical tipson how to strategically plant
clues and build suspense in yournovel.
So grab a notebook and let'sdive right into my conversation
with Daniel David Wallace.
SPEAKER_01 (01:41):
Hi, Savannah.
It's great to be here.
Such an honor.
SPEAKER_00 (01:44):
I'm so excited to have you here.
And we have a hot topic todiscuss today.
But first, can you let myaudience know who you are, what
you do, and things like that?
SPEAKER_01 (01:51):
Of course.
Um my name is Daniel DavidWallace.
I help writers write novels.
I help people um try to gettheir vision on the page and
actually finish that story.
I'm also the host of the Escapethe Plot Forest Summit every
October.
It's been a fantasticexperience.
And you've been such an amazingspeaker.
I'm always it's always greatwhen you're able to come back
(02:13):
and speak and speak at thatevent.
I'm a busy parent.
I'm an ambivalent pet owner.
Yeah, uh, it's great to be ableto do work that I really love.
SPEAKER_00 (02:22):
So we are here to talk about holding things back
or keeping secrets from readersand why we shouldn't do that,
which I know is probably gonnasurprise a lot of listeners to
hear us say you shouldn't keepsecrets from your readers.
So, with that being said, wheredo you want to kick off, Daniel?
SPEAKER_01 (02:38):
I wondered if we could talk about mystery not
mystery novels first of all.
SPEAKER_00 (02:42):
Yes.
SPEAKER_01 (02:42):
That's often where I see this, where it's the most
visible.
I'm thinking of novels wherethere is an amateur detective, a
single genius police officertrying to solve a crime.
And when I think back to thebooks that I really love in
those genres and that style ofwriting, what I remember is that
(03:03):
the clues are just thrown at thereader like confetti.
From the very beginning, thereader is getting all kinds of
hints and possibilities.
Um, someone will say, Oh, thevicar has a real temper, and the
reader thinks, oh, that'simportant.
I should I should bear that inmind.
There is so much being presentedto us that could, that seems
(03:25):
like it could be relevant to themurder.
And in contrast, what I see manyauthors who are working on their
book do instead is operate witha kind of fear that if I reveal
too much, I'm giving away theending.
And the reader will get bored orthe reader will just sort of
think they've got everything.
And so instead, it feels likerather than this rich, intense
(03:50):
world of clues and red herringsand gossip, we're instead kind
of watching this character kindof just walk around town.
They spend a lot of time kind ofwalking 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 thosescenes and then walking around
town, then that's fine.
(04:11):
But the end goal should be notthat.
The goal should be to kind oftry to deliver as much as
possible to the reader as soonas possible.
That's kind of where I came inwith this topic, where when I
started noticing the most.
What do you think about that?
SPEAKER_00 (04:24):
I mean, I see very similar things, and we could
probably list a thousandexamples of when it's done not
well, and we can we can do that.
Um, but I like to always thinkabout the reader's experience.
So, kind of like what you werejust saying, the fun part of
reading stories like that is tohave all the clues surrounding
you and the true clues and thefalse clues.
And then we have to be cleverand figure out which ones are
(04:47):
real, which ones are fake.
Am I gonna guess it before thedetective?
You know, that's part of theexperience that we want.
So, to your point, when I seethis done poorly, it's almost
like, yes, the reader has a lotof questions because there's not
a lot on the page.
And so we're we're askingquestions, but they're not the
right questions.
We're kind of asking, like toyour example of a character
walking around town, we're like,what's the point of this?
(05:08):
Like, what are we doing here?
Instead of, oh, I wonder if it'sgonna be the vicar or if it's
gonna be Miss Susie or, youknow, whoever, whoever.
SPEAKER_01 (05:16):
So Yeah, exactly.
And I think that uh on a reallybasic practical level, I think
that many writers, let me getthis, get this the right way
around.
Like, underestimate how muchinformation the typical reader
needs.
That the typical reader oftenwill just miss something that
(05:37):
that the writer thinks they'vemade very clear.
They will they will not evenremember a character that that
was mentioned 30, 40 pages ago.
Um, the reader put the book downand dealt with some kind of
crisis in the kitchen and cameback three days later.
SPEAKER_00 (05:51):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (05:52):
And and so I think that often writers are worried
about being too obvious, puttingit on too thick.
And I always want to say, no,I'll be obvious.
SPEAKER_00 (06:01):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (06:02):
Um, be lay it on way too thick.
Because you can always dial thatstuff down.
SPEAKER_00 (06:07):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (06:08):
If I showed you a really compelling murder mystery
that I had written, and yousaid, wonderful, on the edge of
my seat, couldn't stop reading,but I did figure out who the
killer was at three-quartermark.
Well, I'd much rather have thatproblem 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 afun read.
Like that, I think, is a muchbigger problem that writers
(06:31):
should deal with.
SPEAKER_00 (06:32):
Yeah, I totally agree.
And, you know, it's funnybecause I think this comes from
a place of fear sometimes,right?
It's like you don't want to getit wrong because of this, you
don't want to get it wrongbecause of that.
And so this idea of like, how dowe know how much to put in, when
to put in, that's um also kindof just the challenge for us
writers and how we get better atour craft is dissecting stories
like you're talking about andthen applying that to our own
(06:54):
work.
And I always say somethingsimilar to you is that in your
first draft, be obvious, likelay it on as thick as you want,
put all the clues in therebecause you're probably still
not even doing it to the extentthat you need to.
You know, that's what I see.
Do you see the same thing?
SPEAKER_01 (07:08):
Absolutely.
Like often the person who says,I just I wanted to shock you.
I wanted to make it so obviousthat you would be disgusted.
And I say, I thought it was apretty well-written scene.
Like, I I would have put a bitmore in, to be honest.
Yeah, yeah.
And I think when you see whenyou mentioned about fear is
really valid, and I think thatone fear many people have is
(07:29):
they picture like a bookreviewer or an angry person on
Goodreads, like mocking thembecause they weren't, it's a bit
hard to put into words, but likeaustere enough, uh subtle
enough.
And I think that it's it'sreally worth trying to look at
that fear and saying the onlyreason that mean person would
(07:51):
find the book is because it hadbeen loved by many people and
had gone through the wholepublishing process.
And if that one grumpy person onGoodreads doesn't like it and
they figured out the murdererearly on, which I see, of
course, in published books thatare incredibly successful, where
I didn't spot the twist at all,and I'll see something I noticed
(08:12):
it in chapter two.
That I think that that fear ofbeing found out, of not being a
good enough artist, I think thatit's really worth acknowledging
that fear, but realizing thatthere are there are more
important things to get right.
You can't please that grumpyperson on Goodreads, but you
could write a story that yeah,that has the interiority, has
(08:32):
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 Iunderstand sort of where I am,
what the story's doing.
And I think that's really that'sa good goal.
SPEAKER_00 (08:45):
Yeah.
Everyone's gonna get that onestar review too.
I think that's just the natureof the game.
So, you know, we can think aboutit like, are we gonna let that
fear of that one star review orthat comment that we're not
being deft enough or whatever,is that what's gonna drive us
forward, or is it this desire tofinish our books and share it
with the, you know, bunch ofother people that are really
gonna like it?
So totally agree.
(09:06):
But I know something you talkabout is like this idea of going
at it to outwit our readersversus kind of bringing the
reader along with us andtreating them like friends.
Can you talk about that?
SPEAKER_01 (09:16):
Well, there's so much to say about this.
I think that one thing on apurely mechanical level is when
you see writers preparing atwist, when you see someone
preparing a surprise, it's notdifficult to go back and look
through the book and just seehow much work they did to
foreshadow, prepare, and justclarify like what is happening.
(09:41):
And I think that some writersfeel like my job is to genuinely
shock the reader or surprisethem.
And obviously it's good to beit's good to surprise the
reader, but on a deeper level,what we see in a lot of
successful novels is that thereis 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
(10:05):
bring up.
And one is the ending of theHunger Games.
Sorry, this is a bit of aspoiler, but the book's been
around around for a while.
The climactic scene of the ofthe Hunger Games, the original
novel, is that Katniss producesthese poison berries that she uh
threatens to to consume and thusstymie the plans of the game
makers.
I mean, it's a famous moment.
(10:26):
And someone another teacher, TimStorm, showed me this, and I've
I've always been haunted by it.
Is if you just search for theword berries in the book, you
see dozens of moments.
Berries are in the very firstchapter before she's even gone
off to the games.
She's talking about berries, andshe discusses at length through
the book all the differentthings that this character knows
(10:46):
about berries.
We see the poison berries beingused in some, so we know they
actually are fatal.
We sort of see like how youcould get confused about having
them and who you know, adifferent someone could have
them and not realize they hadthem.
And it's it's really worth sortof breaking down, like, okay,
you want this finale to workinstantly.
So the reader, as soon as thereader gets to that moment, she
has the berries in the hand, shesort of says, like, let's eat
(11:08):
them.
The reader is not sitting therethinking, wait, are the berries
actually going to kill them?
Like, how long will that take?
Could they could it could it'sgonna take two, three days?
Like, that's not very dramatic.
You want the reader to instantlyjust be on the page with the
protagonist.
And what I think that novelshows is you've got to give the
reader so much dozens ofmentions of berries, and and and
dramatizing it, not just talkingabout it, but dramatizing it.
(11:31):
These berries really do killpeople, 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 murdermystery, but it's just just to
make that scene work, you've gotto treat the reader like they
need they that you're bringingthem along.
And instead of thinking, I'mworried that there's someone
(11:54):
here who's noticed that we'vetalked about berries a lot
halfway through the HungerGames.
I they're gonna they're gonnaguess what the ending is, um,
you know, which nobody, which noone does.
SPEAKER_00 (12:03):
Yeah, I love your point that it's we get at the
end, we have all the clarity weneed for the impact.
So we have all the information,which is why it lands.
It's not landing and it's notsurprising because we just
withheld everything, you know.
Um, so I think that's such agreat example for readers.
And you know that I've studiedthe Harry Potter book, Ad
Nauseum at this point.
So it's the same thing there.
(12:24):
Like, how many times do we seeSnape, who is our red herring,
who's directly in front ofProfessor Quirrell, who's the
bad guy?
So I would encourage anyonewho's listening and thinking
that this berry topic or theProfessor Quirrell thing is
interesting, go look at yourfavorite 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 startputting in words into the find,
and you'll be, I think, stunnedhow many times, just and not
even just like the synonym, butjust 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 andthe Cerulean Sea, where the
characters literally have thesame conversation multiple
times.
It doesn't feel boring, itdoesn't feel like way, like, am
I being insulted, or does itreally is the writer not think
I'm getting it?
You feel grateful, you feellike, oh, the stakes have now
(13:21):
risen, the deadline is gettingcloser, the the nature of these
kids' magical powers is growingmore obvious, apparent, our
protagonist is getting more andmore conflicted, and yet, and so
then the the the uh the othercharacters come in and Linus and
Arthur will have essentially thesame conversation, but now it's
getting more powerful.
And this can be done in a verylike in a I want to really
(13:43):
stress like in a very simple,direct way.
It literally is the sameconversation.
There are other moments when thechildren will take Linus on a
similar kind of a game,adventure game, and each time
it's slightly different, but youyou understand like what is
happening because these thingsare being repeated.
Yeah, and I think that um manywriters, I don't want to be like
(14:05):
too controversial here, but likeI sometimes think that plot
structure advice can concealfrom writers how much is just
staying the same, yeah, sameconversations, the same doubts,
um, the same in House of theTrillian C, the same letters to
his his bosses where he'sbasically saying the same thing
each time, but it's just thestakes are rising, and so the
reader's getting more tense.
So, well, how is this all gonnawork out?
(14:27):
I think that that can be reallypowerful.
SPEAKER_00 (14:29):
I do too.
And I think as a listener, Imight be thinking, okay, I get
this in theory.
Is there this magic ratio oftimes I need to say something?
Because you know people aregonna 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 isreally like a conventional
surprise, you you can, I think,see like a rule of three, you
know, in the in the house in theTrillian Sea, there is a plot
thread.
This is not really a spoiler,but there is a seller.
(15:01):
And I counted how many timesdoes 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 becauseit's pretty straightforward.
We're visiting an old house,there is a room, Linus has never
been shown, he doesn't know howto get in.
It's not that many times.
When I see um a book dosomething where the reader is
(15:24):
going to be really tested, Idon't know what the top number
is, but it's a lot.
In the the sci-fi novel AVictory is greater than death by
Charlie Jane Anders, the thevillain has this incredible
power where when he I'm gonnathis is a bit of a spoiler, but
it's it's not a huge spoiler.
The villain has this incrediblepower where if he kills you,
(15:46):
that your friends hate you afterdeath.
And that is kind of like astrange idea.
It's not you you've never seenit before.
It sort of doesn't really makesense in terms of physics, like
how is that possible?
Because he's like literally heis actually like zapping people,
how's he changed people's minds?
And Anders goes through exampleafter example.
(16:06):
We see multiple people taken outby this villain, and at first
it's just it's just described tous, oh then I disliked him, even
though he was my friend.
And you think that doesn't makesense.
Like, how's that possible?
What happened?
Yeah, like what they must beshould be confused.
And and Anders shows us thismultiple times, getting closer
and closer to our protagonist,until in the final scene, it is
(16:27):
the protagonist and her bestfriends against this guy.
And you can believe that at thatpoint I'm really on the edge of
my seat because I know all theparameters, I understand what
will happen if the you know thelaser goes off.
But it's such an odd idea thatif Anna has just said, you know,
halfway point, by the way, he'sgot this magical power, it's
(16:47):
pretty bad.
And then we got to the finaleand he's like firing his laser
around, you just think, like,really?
Like, yeah, can you just talkyourself out of it?
Like, I don't, and so at leastseven mentions, I feel like.
SPEAKER_00 (16:58):
Yeah, and it wouldn't have the weight too at
the finale if you only mentionedit once, because we would be
like, I don't know, is thisgonna be a problem?
Are we risking the friendship?
We don't know.
And that's something I like tothink about too is like, why do
we do the things we do?
And back to your your pointearlier, you said sometimes
readers like we're alreadyabsorbing other things in the
story.
So we're not always gonnaremember that you mentioned the
(17:20):
seller in house of the ceruleansea back in chapter two, if
we're in chapter 17.
Um, but other times it's like weneed to be reminded so that we
understand what's going on, whatthe stakes are.
And I love that you brought upthe similar conversations at
different points, you know,because that is how life works
too.
If if the stakes in our own lifeare raised, then it's like,
well, what are we gonna do aboutour family?
What are we gonna do about ourhouse?
(17:41):
What are we gonna do about ourjobs?
Right.
So it just makes it all feelmore cohesive and real.
And I think um, yeah, I thinkthe key thing I'm hearing over
and over is like, put in morethan you think if I'm a
listener.
Put in more stuff than youthink, more clues, more
information, and give us thoseparameters, 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, likenot looking at the reader as
like, I don't want to say anyonetruly does this, but I think
people fall into this idea ofthe reader is like their their
enemy.
Yeah.
They need to outwit the readersomehow, they need to hold back
information from the reader sothat they've got a story.
(18:20):
Um, your example of the strangerjust walking down the street,
holding back that it's someonethey already know for no reason,
really, just to create tension.
Um you whereas instead lookingat like um the reader as our
friend would like all theinformation we can provide, and
they're still not gonna know whothe killer is.
(18:42):
I mean, these Agatha Christienovels where you've can you've
been given endless clues.
I mean, at least for me, I don'tguess who it is, because there's
always more clues, or there'sthere's a clue that you didn't
think about.
Even a story like The House inthe in the Cerulean Sea, that's
not really about twists exactly.
It's not about reveals, but thepower comes from seeing the
character, the main character,change and actually do
(19:05):
something.
The thing that he's been puttingoff and avoiding the whole
story.
That's what gives it its power.
And the reader has to have comealong on the ride to do that.
And I think that many writerssort of underestimate that that
element of writing.
SPEAKER_00 (19:20):
Right.
I agree.
I think, yeah, it's such aninteresting topic that could we
could talk about this by genretoo.
Like there's so many differentways we could dig into it.
But I think what we also need toremember if we're writing these
kind of stories is we want tohave the effect that you're
talking about.
We want that power.
And like you said, if we don'tinclude all the information,
it's gonna rob our stories ofthat power.
(19:41):
But also our job is to getskilled at misdirection and it's
to get skilled at knowing how touse these other tools so that we
can have the effect we want andnot 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 weretalking about earlier kind of
made me think about usingdifferent point of views,
because I can feel almost I canfeel 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 myantagonist point of view.
I'm gonna include all the sidecharacters' point of view.
It's almost like a knee-jerk inthe other way.
And then you have to think aboutthe more point of views you
(20:16):
include sometimes, that alsoruins the suspense.
Because if we're showing theantagonist's point of view and
we know what their plan is, weknow what's coming, and then you
take us back into theprotagonist's point of view, and
they're like, we don't knowwhat's coming.
That's dramatic irony.
It's not suspense, you know.
So I think sometimes we mighthear podcasts like this one and
we might overcorrect and do theopposite, you know?
(20:37):
So I think there's this balance,and and listeners are probably
like, how do we strike thatbalance?
How do we strategically revealstuff?
How do we strategically keepthings back?
What's your two cents on that?
SPEAKER_01 (20:48):
It's a great point.
And yes, I think that dramaticirony is is is like a tool
that's very easy to overuse.
I can remember novels where youknow exactly what's happened to
character B, but you have towatch hundreds of pages of
character A, wondering wherethey are, thinking they're dead.
It's it's tough to get right.
I think that in mostcontemporary fiction, unless
(21:09):
you're trying to write likeTolstoy in War and Peace, most
people accept the idea that weare going to meet and have POV
access to a relatively tinynumber of people.
Even in a fantasy epic, we'regoing to have POV access to five
people, maybe, maybe ten at theabsolute extremes.
(21:30):
And I think it's worth likedisciplining oneself to thinking
these are my windows into thestory.
And if I can't delivereverything that this story needs
through this one POV, maybe it'sthe it's like the POV that's the
problem.
Maybe my character's too youngor too disinterested or not
(21:51):
expert enough, or doesn't knowanybody who could just explain
things a bit.
Um you know, if there's noObi-Wan Kenobi character to
explain what the force is,you're gonna spend a huge amount
of time of the reader feelingjust sort of wondering what's
happening.
Um But once you've made and likeonce you've made that
commitment, I'm gonna have likesay, I would encourage most
(22:15):
novels, one to three of thesePOV characters.
Like, okay, how can I give thereader as much as possible
through that that doorway,through that window, which is,
you know, Harry Potter and theHarry Potter books, um, through
Linus.
And I find that sometimeswriters um underestimate how
much you can get through with awith a well-designed story where
(22:37):
people are having conversationswith a character like Linus,
where letters are coming in,where there's diaries, where
there's interviews.
You can convey a huge amount andyou can space it out in a way
that feels natural, feels clear.
Um, and I think that sort ofseeing it like I've made this
commitment to a character likeLinus in from House of the
(22:58):
Cerulean Sea.
I've made that commitment.
How can I get everything I needto get through this sometimes
rather narrow window or youknow, uh dusty window, but how
can I get it all through ratherthan kind of breaking the frame
and having just introducing sortof a one-chapter POV just to
sort of convey some informationthat the protagonist could
(23:20):
figure out eventually.
SPEAKER_00 (23:21):
Yeah, and that's the great challenge of it, which I
think this is probably why youteach character-first writing,
because we need to be in thecharacter's head and we need to
kind of understand, you know,are they a native to this world?
Are they brand new to thisworld?
What do they need to know?
Why would they want to know it?
Right.
It makes our jobs so much easierwhen 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 sounda bit strange to some people,
but I truly believe that readerslearn to read your book by their
relationship with the maincharacter.
And so if they don't understandwhy something is happening from
the perspective of that maincharacter, they don't get it.
Yeah.
Like, and to use your example ofthe man in the in the in the
(24:01):
alleyway, and oh, it was a itwas the character's father.
If the if the protagonistdoesn't even seem to react to
that, I think many readers wouldjust be left sort of bewildered.
Like, yeah, is that meant to beimportant?
Is the father like ashapeshifter?
Yeah, like it could be anything.
And I think that many writerssort of underestimate like the
the the possibilities that willgo through a reader's mind.
Was he sort of is he like ashadow guy?
(24:23):
Yeah, it's a good thing.
I don't understand.
What kind of what kind of bookis this?
Yeah.
And without that main character,without one or two or three, or
you know, if you're veryambitious, more main characters
who, as things happen, theyreact to them, and therefore we
know whether it's good or bad.
And we can be happy for thecharacter, frustrated for them.
I find that even like what seemslike just factual descriptions
(24:48):
pass over readers' heads if theycan't make that kind of
judgment.
Like you could people can bedescribing like what the sky
looks like.
And I've noticed that likereaders in the in the in the
workshop in the class will justsay, like, what cut what what
was the sky like again?
I I I forgot that.
Because they were looking forthat, for their person to have a
reaction.
And without that, it it sort ofdoesn't quite work.
(25:08):
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 justboil all this down into one
takeaway about this topic ofkeeping secrets and kind of
laying the groundwork tosurprise 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 asyou possibly can so that when
your surprises and your twistsand your world building arrive,
they've got all the tools theyneed to enjoy it, to understand
it, and be ready for the nextpart of the scene.
They're reading at a normalpace, they want to keep reading.
Give them the tools they need toboth get it and then keep going
(25:45):
on to the next line.
SPEAKER_00 (25:46):
I love that.
You have a free course aboutshort stories you're gonna tell
us about in a second.
Um, but I'm guessing that is agreat way to practice this kind
of stuff is by writing littleshort stories.
Is that right?
SPEAKER_01 (25:57):
I think that's really good.
And I think I think like manypeople that I know, um, uh, many
of the writers I know are tryingto write novels.
And I think really looking atthe books that you enjoy and and
noticing moments that you weresurprised by a reveal or some
new world-building elementreally made you gasp.
And re mentioned this earlier,Savannah, like rereading the
(26:19):
book and saying, okay, but was Iactually being surprised?
SPEAKER_00 (26:22):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (26:23):
Or was I just piecing together elements and
tools that I had already beengiven?
I was just, it was just thefinal brick in the wall.
I don't know what the rightbuilding analogy is.
It was the final piece.
I think that can be reallyvaluable.
SPEAKER_00 (26:35):
Uh I think that's so important too, because most of
the time we underestimate howmuch information keeps us
engaged.
So as we're learning all thesenew things and um being given
all the information we need,that's very satisfying because
again, the experiences we'retrying to piece it together.
We can't do that without theinformation.
So totally agree.
But tell us about your shortstory course.
SPEAKER_01 (26:58):
Well, I designed this course to teach some ideas
about character-first writingand 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, youget the email, it comes in, you
do the prompt, the next emailwill arrive.
Or if you don't do the prompt,it will come a day later.
(27:19):
So if you want to take itslowly, you can.
Over a period of almost twoweeks, you can, or you can try
and do the whole thing in onewild long, you know, night-long
session.
And it's meant to really justshow ideas about how we connect
to characters, how we connect tocharacters in scene, how we
understand in the the shortamount of space you have in a
short story, how we canunderstand backstory context,
(27:42):
and how we can build towardssomething 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 whereyou can find Daniel all around
the internet, including hiswonderful 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 EasyPodcast.
Head over to Savannah Gilbo.comforward slash podcast for the
complete show notes, includingthe resources I mentioned today,
as well as bonus materials tohelp you implement what you've
learned.
And if you're ready to get morepersonalized guidance for your
specific writing stage, whetheryou're just starting out, stuck
(28:30):
somewhere in the middle of adraft, drowning in revisions, or
getting ready to publish, takemy free 30-second quiz at
savanna gilbo.com forward slashquiz.
You'll get a customized podcastplaylist that'll meet you right
where you're at and help you getto your next big milestone.
Last but not least, make sure tofollow this podcast in your
podcast player of choice becauseI'll be back next week with
(28:51):
another episode full ofactionable tips, tools, and
strategies to help you become abetter writer.
Until then, happy writing.
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