Wait For It: A Successful Slow-Reveal

Sometimes when we’re caught up in a good story, we lose our minds. We want to know everything about the characters, the world, the plot…then next thing you know you’ve read three books in two days and your brain is so fried that nothing actually makes sense anymore. Been there before? Me too.

Well, even though our reader brains want to tear through anything and everything about a story as fast as humanly possible, let me appeal to a different side of that coin. This doesn’t really affect how fast you read, but it pertains to how quickly a writer decides to reveal pieces of the story.

This week, we’re going to talk about the mysterious art of the slow-reveal. How do you achieve that Goldilocks balance of pacing on the information your reader needs to know? What factors need to be considered?

The first thing you probably need to take into account regarding what to reveal is relevance. What does the reader need to know at this point? If you don’t say something at this particular spot, does it affect anything here or is there something crucial that needs to be said so everything makes sense for the reader moving forward?

Instead of bombarding you with a bunch of questions like the above paragraph, let me explain with a few examples. I’ll do my best not to spoil anything.

One of the best examples of a well-executed slow-reveal I’ve seen is the Starbound trilogy by Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner (These Broken Stars, This Shattered World, and Their Fractured Light). I’m not fully sure if it falls under YA or New Age, but think somewhere in that range, content-wise. Other than just being excellent sci-fi, this series involves a masterful slow-reveal consuming the six main characters and an otherworldly plot (pun intended) where the reader is left guessing at every turn. Literally, I read These Broken Stars for the first time and instantly convinced Kristin to buy it after one conversation.

Basically, how this series works is each book you’re introduced to a star-crossed couple in dire circumstances, then those characters reappear later in the next book which is narrated by another couple, until finally in Book 3, you get all the characters (three couples) together and their full connection to each other is finally revealed. Beyond the relationships between the characters being slowly built and revealed over the course of the three books, Kaufman and Spooner masterfully slow-reveal information for the plot as well. I mean this as a compliment, the first time I read These Broken Stars it completely broke my writer brain because I was trying so desperately to figure out the story before it happened, and I couldn’t do it because you’re only given the information absolutely necessary to the current section of the story. Actually, I read These Broken Stars, instantly went and bought the remainder of the series, then went back and re-read Book 1 again- one, because I thought it was great, but two, because I really wanted to read it again with the big reveal in mind so I could pay attention to the technique Kaufman and Spooner were using as writers.

Because of what you know from Book 1, when you get to This Shattered World to continue the story, you actually get a fun sense of anticipation because you know a little bit more about what’s happening than the characters, and you know somewhat where things are leading. Somewhat. There’s still plenty in Book 2 to shock you because, once again, the authors have made sure you don’t quite know the whole story. By Their Fractured Light, Kaufman and Spooner instantly start tying up all the loose ends and giving the reader clues for the full scale of what’s happening and literally you lose your mind because each reveal is an absolute bombshell.

As writers, we want our readers to lose their minds. Looking at Starbound as an example, Kaufman and Spooner spend three books stretching out the big reveal. They take their time with the way information is revealed, and it pays off in a massive way. You only get to know what you need to know, bare minimum, so when they actually start giving you the information freely, it’s not only fascinating but the reader is hanging on every word because they’re finally explaining what you’ve waited for the whole time.

Now, I’m sure there’s probably a very fine line regarding the pacing of revealing information. As a writer, you have to consider the relevance, but also the pacing. Determine what the reader needs to know and when it’s a good time to tell them based on where you’re at in your story but be very careful to not to string it out too long. Think about a mystery, for example. We need enough information to engage us and get the wheels turning in our brains, but we don’t want enough to make it predictable or easy to solve. At the same time, we don’t want to be waiting too long for the reveal. I don’t think this is a technique that can be offered to a writer with a formula- there may not be any specific way to do it, being as it probably is fully determined by the factors of your story.

With the Starbound trilogy, I highly suspect Kaufman and Spooner had to figure out what they could and couldn’t reveal and when as they began the writing process, considering how the series is set up. But what about a more organic way of writing a slow-reveal?

Because it’s the last thing I read and it’s fresh in my mind as a good example of a slow-reveal, let’s talk about the Beautiful Creatures series by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl. With each of the four books in the main series, information gets slowly revealed in a series of flashbacks about characters beyond Ethan and Lena (the main protagonists) who helped contribute to the way things ended up in the main plotline. As I mentioned in the last Monthly Reading Wrap-Up, these flashbacks always offer a fresh perspective and new information about secondary characters or the plot. Because each book follows the same format, you know the flashbacks are coming, so I always felt a sense of anticipation before the flashback characters were revealed, like, “Oh, who’s it going to be this time?”

My favorite of these character flashbacks occurred in the third book, Beautiful Chaos, because it followed Sarafine, Lena’s mother. So, this storyline happens in Book 3, right? Prior to this side plot following Sarafine, essentially all you know about her is this: she’s Lena’s mother, what type of powers she has, she’s a bad guy, and she allegedly played a role in the death of Lena’s father. Really not a lot to go on, right? In truth, until this point, you’ve really not needed to know that much about her- Sarafine pops up occasionally to cause trouble and fight the good guys. Yet this is where the technique comes in.

See, because you know so little about Sarafine, you’ve had two to three whole books to think whatever you want about her. So, what do we know again: Lena’s mom, bad guy, etc.? Because there’s been so little given information-wise about Sarafine, you as a reader naturally begin to stereotype her based on what you do know. You’re playing off the assumptions you’ve been left to draw based on what little you know, which means Garcia and Stohl can come in with their writing and absolutely turn everything you think you know about her on its head. What’s her story? Surely Sarafine didn’t start out as a villain? How did she end up with the bad guys? Is her motivation really what you think it is? And, one thing I really loved about this subplot, is that because you’re getting the story of Lena’s mother, you’re also getting the story of Lena, a story she’s never had access to or understanding of before. Plus, it shows you just how similar characters, though completely opposed, can be.

The same thing sort of happened for me and Kristin while working on our manuscript, The Visionary. Our major villain really doesn’t do more than pop in and out of the story during what we’ve written so far of what will hopefully become the first two novels. Manuscript One deals with a smaller antagonist, while Manuscript Two begins to introduce the bigger picture leading up to this person. By necessity, our Big Bad’s backstory won’t fully be fleshed out until the final leg of the trilogy. The first two are dealing with other antagonists and problems, and though they hint at the larger villain, that particular part of the story isn’t needed yet. Also, there’s just not time for it within the first two manuscripts even if we felt the need to throw it in. It’s not relevant until we want to put all focus on the Big Bad, so if Manuscript Three presents the best and most appropriate place for that storyline, then that’s where it has to go.

One thing Kristin and I also did while writing, especially since the first part of our story is primarily a mystery plot, was stop and gauge the readers assumptions. As I mentioned above, the information you feed your reader directly forms where their brain goes and shapes their suspicions. For a mystery, this is crucial, so we had to pause and ask ourselves what sort of things the reader might be thinking at the current moment. Who might they suspect? Are we giving them enough clues or too many? Keep in mind what your readers are most likely to think because you’re the one pointing them in the direction they need to go…or not go, depending on how twisty you want your plot to be.

Anyway, that’s just my opinion and a little bit of our experience so far writing a slow-reveal. Kristin and I didn’t really set out specifically to write our story that way, it’s just how the writing naturally led us to go. As I said before, I think some stories like Starbound might have needed more planning to figure out what could be said or not, whereas the Beautiful Creatures series might have been more of a you know you’re telling a subplot through flashbacks, then deciding on the best character to do that with later. I don’t know- all this is just me guessing on how some of my favorite writers do what they do best. Maybe everyone had everything planned out from the get-go and could sit down and be like, “In book 3, we’re going to reveal this about such and such.” Who knows. Interestingly though, both the Starbound trilogy and Beautiful Creatures introduce information via flashbacks and/or things very similar to them, so they use a lot of the same technique in that regard. I feel like some people are on the fence about flashbacks, but I personally like them- also, they might just be a really easy way to convey background information and stay in the moment.

Going off of all that, it seems like a lot of how quickly or slowly a writer needs to reveal information depends on the actual story itself. Think about what your reader needs to know for things to make sense, think about what’s relevant to the story at the current moment, and think about the pacing. Does it make sense to reveal a lot about your big bad guy in book 1 or do you need to keep them a mystery for a little bit longer? Think about what your readers are assuming and how you can break those assumptions down with new information- are you misleading them, letting them draw the wrong conclusions to break down later, or putting them on the right path? What you do is determined by your story’s natural path.

The Starbound trilogy keeps information hidden until it’s absolutely necessary to provide a stunning slow-reveal over the course of the final book when everything’s reaching its head. The Beautiful Creatures series constantly reshapes what you think you know about established characters and the roles they’ve played in the formation of the story. Take a book like Christopher Paolini’s sweeping fantasy series The Inheritance Cycle, for example. There are things revealed in the latter books that completely upend the context you have for Eragon (Book One). Honestly, that’s one of the first series I’ve read where I’ve gotten into the second or third book and immediately wanted to turn around and re-read the first book again because everything you thought you knew about it was completely changed.

Slow-reveals are a very powerful writing tool…All you need is the patience and the skill to recognize when the story is telling you it’s the right time to share your secrets. All of the above are great series with prominent slow-reveals. If you know of any other series that do a good job at this too or have any tips for writing your own slow-reveal, let us know.

Thanks for reading. Write on.

-Kamryn