Mystery Versus Confusion in Fiction
Holding things back from readers can be a good way to inspire curiosity, but too much mystery can lead to confusion. This article describes the underlying dynamics and gives strategies to keep readers turning pages.
—Annie Mydla, Managing Editor
"When the reader finds out ____x____, it's going to blow their mind!"
That thought is truly delightful. What could be more satisfying than astonishing a reader with an amazing reveal? But proceed with caution: by withholding "x" now, you might be setting the reader up for confusion—maybe even for losing faith in your narrative.
The possibility of reader confusion can be hard to imagine in the throes of creation. Surely the reader can't help but be as excited about your plan as you are. The truth is, though, that readers need a certain amount of information to feel immersed and interested right off the bat: material that will give them expectations about the nature of the book, as well as questions that will keep them turning pages.
The nature of the printed word is that we read one word at a time. No reader can know everything right away. But they'll do what it takes to find out, as long as they're properly anchored in the text and feel there's something to look forward to.
Our team recently judged three books that strayed from intrigue into confusion:
Case 1 is an atmospheric literary novel that changes first-person perspectives five times within the first two chapters. Names distinguish the characters, but the style of thought is identical, so I couldn't distinguish between characters through the tenor of their narration. There is little physical description to help us feel the differences between the characters. I imagine the author's goal was to make me curious about each of the five characters, but I just felt confused about who was who.
Case 2 is an 80,000-word speculative novel that uses twenty intersecting plotlines to tell the story of twenty different characters. All twenty plotlines must proceed at record pace in order to meet the goal word count. Any plotline is liable to be picked up on any page. Ostensibly, there is a main character, but their plotline is quickly lost because equal emphasis is given to each of the twenty plotlines. The idea might have been to keep me looking forward to an ending where essential information from each one of the plotlines would come together in a mind-blowing whole, but instead, I was confused about why I was supposed to care about any of the threads.
Case 3 is a literary memoir that begins with a lengthy, detailed description of the country (history, major figures, economy, physical characteristics, and more) in which the story takes place. The description takes up the first 50 pages. Perhaps the goal was to deepen my curiosity about the upcoming story by giving me the ingredients to become as invested in the context as the author was, but I became lost in the wealth of detail and confused about what to focus on.
While the nature of each book's problem might seem quite different, they all shared three faults:
1. They did not build patterns that would let me develop expectations for later in the book. I lost faith that my reading efforts would be rewarded with satisfying, timely revelations.
2. They did not introduce questions to excite my anticipation for what I might learn later.
3. The material they provided was not absorbing: I did not find myself drawn in to the point where I began to forget the outside world.
Maybe you're planning a mysterious book at this very moment. Let's see how to avoid the pitfalls.
Give readers accurate expectations
Some authors try to build curiosity by delaying the introduction of their main characters or main plotlines until a few chapters in. That can certainly work in some cases. However, it's important to use that space to fully anchor the reader in the world you're creating: anchoring them in material designed to help them set accurate expectations about the style, themes, and plot concerns in the rest of the book.
Don't: Introduce a nameless character of no description, in a nameless place of no description, doing something but it's not clear what, until the details are revealed 75 pages in.
Do: Use your first pages or chapters to absorb readers in scenes that set up the book to come.
Example: In Cixin Liu's The Three-Body Problem, the main character, Wang Miao, is not introduced until Chapter 4. The first three chapters create anticipation for the book's main plotline by vividly describing the Cultural Revolution experiences of a secondary character, Ye Wenjie. These chapters set up important style points, themes, and imagery that come in handy again and again after Wang Miao is introduced. Meanwhile, they're so substantive, unique, and vivid that they are not only free of confusion, they draw us into Liu's world, fulfilling the most important requirement of any commercial novel's beginning.
Orient readers within a single point of view before widening the perspective
Sometimes the author withholds information about a character or characters to try and make us curious about them. To this end, they switch perspectives often in the early chapters, hoping that getting a "taste" of a character will make us feel interested and invested.
Risky!
Intimacy is hard to build if the reader has to keep switching gears so drastically. It's often better to get readers intimately settled within just one point of view before adding others to the mix.
Don't: Speed-run character introductions or trust that "inner access" (first-person narration) will automatically grant familiarity. First-person can be the most opaque of all if the "who, what, when, where, why, how" aren't given.
Do: Build one point of view so that the reader feels fully anchored in it. It doesn't have to be a lengthy process. Choosing key details (who, what, when, where, why, how) can take mere sentences.
Example: George R.R. Martin's Game of Thrones series has a famously sprawling cast. But the Prologue of the first book gives us an intimate understanding of the point of view of a character we'll never see alive again: Will, a young member of the Night's Watch. Relating to Will draws us into the entire series.
Then, once he's gone, he's not missed: first, because the way Martin handles the Prologue sets our expectation that Will is a tertiary character who doesn't matter much and will not survive into the book proper; second, because the chapters that follow are so absorbing; and third, because so much of the rest of Will's scene is still with us. Chapter 1 onwards build on the knowledge Will gave us about the setting, the White Walkers, the Night's Watch, the book's atmosphere, the series' genre features, and more. Long after the expendable character is gone, the context he brought with him is still preventing us from becoming confused.
Anchor readers in an intense closeup before zooming out
So many North Street entries assume that I'll develop a strong investment in their world if I'm 1,000% acquainted with their worldbuilding before the end of Chapter 1. That's a recipe for overwhelm. It's often more effective to start with a blown-up view of something very small that reflects an important aspect of the wider premise. Orient the reader in that one thing fully before moving on to the big picture.
Don't: Try to give exhaustive context in the first chapters.
Do: Start by taking a close look at something on the micro-scale, then zooming out and applying the same concept to the macro.
Example: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams has rich worldbuilding, but the first image in the book is a detailed portrait of a man, Arthur, lying in a puddle. It "zooms out" a bit to show that the puddle is in front of his house, and he's blocking a bulldozer. To give readers time to see every detail and thoroughly digest the scenario, there's an entire scene in which the man speaks with the bulldozer operator who's charged with razing the house so a new highway can run through the area. Then, once readers have become properly oriented in the premise, the concepts of eminent domain and demolition are applied to Earth itself, which is about to be destroyed for the sake of a cosmic through-way.
The synecdochal relationship between Arthur's hapless wallowing and the larger plight of Earth means that readers' knowledge of the smaller-scale problem is effortlessly transferred to the larger, preventing the confusion and boredom that might result were the introduction of the book's main plot delayed by a bulkier, "tell-ier" method of context delivery.
Write more than one book
Many authors have a lot of stories to tell. Forcing them all into one book is possibly the quickest way to turn suspense into confusion. If you're writing a new book and keep thinking up ideas for new plotlines, it could mean you have a series on your hands. Not sure? Read my article on whether it might be time to turn your one book into more than one.
Conclusion
Readers need something to go on, no matter where in the book they are. You might not be showing them the main "what, when, where, how, why" right away—but they need a "what, when, where, how, why" to help them set expectations, develop questions about what might happen next, and engage with the narrative.
Professional authors know how to use these "in between" spots to help develop motifs, hide exposition or back story, insert synecdoche, raise tension in a B plot, or plant ideas to call back later: in short, to cultivate the juxtapositional density that feels truly absorbing to readers. If you find you're having trouble doing that, you might not yet be fully acquainted with your book's key themes, symbols, or main plotline, or the scope of your book might simply be too wide. Mind-mapping the core characteristics of your book might help bring to light the information readers require to feel anchored in the world you're creating.
Categories: Advice for Writers, Annie in the Middle
