Things revelations do in stories

Graphic by Peg Ihinger

One of the things I’m currently struggling with in my WIP is the pace and timing of various revelations—about the world, about various characters, about the past, about secrets deliberately kept by characters and secrets deliberately withheld by the author (me). When is the right time to let the cat out of the bag? If there are multiple cats, what’s the best order to let them out so that they don’t overwhelm the reader or start fighting with each other?

One problem is, as usual, the fuzziness of the terminology. “Revelation” is often used as a synonym for an epiphany—that moment when a major character (usually the protagonist, a viewpoint character, or the villain) has a sudden, important insight or realization about themselves or one of the other characters that changes their choices and actions because of this new understanding. Sometimes this happens off-stage, and the reader/viewer only gets to see the result (as when Han Solo just shows up during the attack on the Death Star in “A New Hope”). When the villain is the one having the epiphany, they usually complete a redemption arc by sacrificing their life to save somebody.

But a character’s personal epiphany is just one kind of revelation that appears in fiction. There are also plot revelations, which range from enormous plot twists—the meteorite’s new trajectory will strike in the middle of London—to small clues like the pen being out of ink or the discovery of a bag of candy corn in the desk drawer of the diabetic whom everyone previously thought was obsessively careful about sugar. This often includes dramatic revelations about various characters’ backstories—the hero and the villain were teammates once, the sidekick’s daughter died because of something another character did, the mercenary is looking for revenge more than money.

Finally, stories are constantly revealing major and minor details about time, place, weather, the immediate surroundings, and the actions and appearance of the characters. The rate at which these things are fed to the reader can have a large impact on the feel and pacing of a story, even when they don’t appear to be plot-relevant.

Revelations can happen to different people at different times. The main character knows what his/her apartment looks like, but the reader doesn’t. Therefore, the first time the main character goes home, the writer has to reveal to the reader what the place looks like, even though it’s not news to the character.

Alternatively, sometimes, the writer wants the reader to know or realize something before the characters do, which can require a lot of maneuvering in a single-viewpoint structure if the characters are not supposed to look stupid by ignoring something the reader can see sitting there in plain sight. (In a multiple-viewpoint novel, the writer can simply give the reader the scene in which the villain tapes the bomb to the underside of the table, and then switch to the later scene in which the hero’s group sits down at it to have dinner.)

And of course there are the revelations the writer has during the writing process (OMG, my protagonist has been planning revenge for the last eight chapters/the wife is having an affair with the gardener/the character who was supposed to be a walk-on is the one pulling strings behind the scenes/the mother has known everything all along/etc.). These are unpredictable, frequently disrupt any plans for where one thought the story was going, and sometimes require significant rewrites to what has gone before, but as Roger Zelazny said, “Trust your demon.”

The timing of a revelation therefore depends on what kind of revelation it is, who is or isn’t receiving the revelation, and what the author is trying to achieve by revealing it. Sometimes, the answers are obvious. If one is writing a detective story, the revelation of the murderer is usually the end of the story. The revelation of the time and place of the story or of an individual scene is usually best done in the first paragraph, or very shortly thereafter. (Note the “usually” in the above examples. None of these things are hard-and-fast rules. “Planet of the Apes” saves the revelation of the true time/place of the story for the very end, for instance.)

Lots of the time, the answer to “when/where is the best place to reveal X to Y” is not obvious at all. A big chunk of that is because the rate at which new information of any kind is revealed to readers has a major impact on the reader’s perception of both the story’s pacing and its difficulty.

Another big chunk has to do with reader expectations, particularly when it comes to revelations like “and the murderer was—” or “the villain has changed his mind” or “the protagonist has just realized [important thing about himself]”. Putting these kinds of things at the beginning of a story, rather than in the middle or at the end, substantially changes the type of story, as well as the revelation. The reader is not reading a mystery about discovering who the murderer is; they’re reading a “how do they catch the guy” story. They’re not reading a villain’s redemption arc or the protagonist’s character growth, they’re reading about the hard work they have to do after the realization. The revelation sets the ground rules for the rest of the story; it’s not a surprising twist in the middle or a satisfying surprise at the climax.

In general, the more words one spends on describing a particular revelation, the more likely the reader is to think it is important and try to remember it, even if it appears minor at the moment. By the same token, delaying the revelation of things that are usually obvious within the first page—like the story’s time, place, genre, main character, etc.—makes many readers assume they are unimportant because the story is taking place in a generic modern world. If, at the end of the third chapter, the reader is suddenly confronted with details that reveal their modern literary story is actually a historical romance set in ancient China, or a science fiction story taking place on Betelgeuse IX, the best reaction the reader is likely to have is annoyed confusion. The worst one is “This author is trying to make me feel stupid,