Writing Telling too much information.

[Gryphon]

TLDR: Hide your big twists and information for later. Don't throw all your cards on the table for all to see on the very first chapter.

Now that we have the TLDR out of the way, lets get to business.

I've seen this so often with new time authors and I am guilty of this as well from when I started writing back in the day when I thought the best kind of story telling was just going from hype moment to hype moment with almost no in-between buildup. This advice is mainly for new authors since I'm sure people writing for at least a year should know this already, but here goes.

The way to hook an audience/reader base isn't by telling them everything about your story. It's about how much you refuse to tell them about your story.

Humans in essence are a curious animal. When we don't know something, or if we feel like someone is hiding something, our brains give off this weird feeling that makes us feel like we've got stuff to do, which is the worst feeling ever. The whole reason science and math is a thing is because we are curious creatures that wants to find out the answers to our universe. An author with this information can prey on that weakness in the reader's brain and tap into it by telling them just enough to get them drawn in, but withholding enough information to force them to be invested.

There's this concept called the mystery box that is brought up time and time again within stories. The mystery box takes many shapes and forms, but no matter what form it takes, it'll always share the same purpose. It's a mystery within a story that the author invented to keep the readers reading. By setting up a mystery box, it keeps readers interested in the story to figure out what's in the box and what will happen by opening it.

For a few examples of mystery boxes, there's Attack on Titan's mystery box of Grisha's basement. It's brought up time and time again in the story, but the author never specifically says what's in the basement until the end of season 3, which when revealed, it quite literally changed the entire direction of the story going forward.

Another example is Satella in Re:Zero. As far as the readers/watchers learn about Satella, they know she's a witch that killed all the other witches and was then killed herself which her sin of killing the witches made her name sort of cursed in the setting of the story. The author also details that she is most likely the cause of why Subaru keeps on reviving after death, but we don't realize her motives until way later, but those hidden motives is what keeps people engaged in the path Subaru walks.

Without a proper mystery box, the readers will read your story and drop it almost right away. The only way to keep someone reading without a mystery box is if the author introduced so many moving parts within the story, that the reader will want to see what machine the gears will create once they turn on. There are many ways to do a mystery box too.

There's what I like to call the obvious mystery box where the author directly states in the story that this certain thing is important and it needs to be found out at all cost. Grisha's basement fits into this category well. There's my favorite type of mystery box being the subtle mystery box where its presented in the story, but the reader never realizes its a mystery box until the reveal happens. It creates this sort of 'What The Fuck' moment in the reader as they realize that the thing you were talking about five chapters ago was building up to something massive. Then they'll go back and point out all the foreshadowing leading up to the moment.

Mystery boxes can also take all sorts of form. Of course, it can take the form of a box, but that's rather uncreative. It can also take the form of a power the MC has. Maybe it can be the mystery box can be a person. Hell, why not go balls to the walls crazy and make an entire city or landmass a mystery box. As long as there's a mystery that can push the story forward, it'll work.

Now, what got me into wanting to make this in the first place? Well, I read the first chapter of a story from the story feedback forum, and the dude on there linked his story. The first dude who responded said it looked good, so that got my interest peaked. So, I read it and it turns out the entire first chapter is just a big infodump with no class in the info dumping. It's just a character talking to their inner demon about neo-humans or whatever. The idea of the story was fine, but the information wasn't told in an interesting way, and in my opinion it would've been better if they just never said that info at all and waited to reveal it later in the story. I let them know that and they thanked me for the criticism, which got me to thinking.

This happens all the time with new authors, and there's no shame in it. But, if no one ever spells this out, then they won't realize this crucial information and then go on their merry way and not learn better. The reason new authors are so prone to this mistake I'd say is because of anxiety. They want to show all their cards, hoping that by doing so it will grab the readers attention, but what it actually does is give them nothing to latch onto. I know because I did the exact same thing on my first ever story where I overthrew the entire government I created in the same chapter I introduced it.

I want newer authors to learn this stuff, which is why I'm posting this, especially since this site has a lot of new authors. I want to read some amazing stories that no one else can come up with except the person writing them. Hopefully this advice can help at least one person starting out their story.

 

[Salvador_Sequeira]

Haha, I think I may have been the person who said the story you mentioned was good.

Thank you for your advice, Master Gryphon! You're right, mystery boxes are crucial, but they're so hard to write. Do you have any advice on making a compelling one? For example, Satella's narrative was really interesting because it had a clear relationship with the plot, but it can be a struggle to mix the plot with mysteries sans infodumping at times.

Any help would be much appreciated!

 

[Aoi_Sora]

This kind of information?

 

[Wintertime]

I find it good to work backwards from the ideal point. It takes a hard time convincing the readers or hiding hidden plots as you're writing, but if you give clues, I find it to work much better. This does require a little bit of storyboarding or at least understanding your character enough to see the path, but it's a good step.

 

[XKARNATION]

Haha, I think I may have been the person who said the story you mentioned was good.

Thank you for your advice, Master Gryphon! You're right, mystery boxes are crucial, but they're so hard to write. Do you have any advice on making a compelling one? For example, Satella's narrative was really interesting because it had a clear relationship with the plot, but it can be a struggle to mix the plot with mysteries sans infodumping at times.

Any help would be much appreciated!

If you planned out your story they are easy to include

 

[Gryphon]

Haha, I think I may have been the person who said the story you mentioned was good.

Thank you for your advice, Master Gryphon! You're right, mystery boxes are crucial, but they're so hard to write. Do you have any advice on making a compelling one? For example, Satella's narrative was really interesting because it had a clear relationship with the plot, but it can be a struggle to mix the plot with mysteries sans infodumping at times.

Any help would be much appreciated!

The whole mystery box thing is something I struggled with for a while as well. Its only somewhat recently, like a year or two ago, after I talked with other authors and rethought my story and wrote some more that I realized how to really do them. At least somewhat well.

The best way I'd say to approach a mystery box is to present characters first and foremost, characterizing them and all, and somewhere near the end of the first chapter, set up the mystery box to coincide with the rising action. Let me use one of my stories for example. On RoyalRoad I wrote a story called Tower of Redemption. It has like 40 something chapters and I abandoned it since it took up way too much of my school time, but I am planning on returning to it at some point.

Well, I set up the mystery box by describing the tower and letting the readers know that anyone who went up the tower they live in never returned. And that's all I did. After I revealed that information, I just let my characters do their thing and as the chapters went on, I slowly drip fed information little by little throughout the chapters. In holding back that information, I created a mystery which could keep readers interested with the story, while also giving my characters breathing room to get the readers hooked on their individual stories.

Then I accidentally dropped the ball at around chapter 30 when I revealed way too much because I wasn't thinking properly and was growing tired of writing it in general when I had so much on my plate. Which then led me to accidentally revealing one of the towers biggest secrets way too early.

Granted there are plenty of ways to do mystery boxes. Some stories can have more than one mystery box as well which can be really interesting as well. As others have already said, planning the story ahead of time can be really beneficial. Or, at the very least planning the mystery can help a lot.

 

[Kilolo]

>telling to not giving too much info
>proceed to telling too much info about giving too much info

uhhh..., okay i guess.

 

[ArcadiaBlade]

I tried the mysterious box thing, a reader reviewed bombed me so much that he summoned zeus to my doorstep and not only cut off my power, but my internet as well.

I was planning on writing the story to be about how the MC's timetravel to be just a delusion he came up, telling himself that by using his tech to timetravel back to the past and save the people he cares about. But the timetravel was just a big bogus and he is just currently living in a comatose state which replayed certain memories he has while he is stuck in the apocalypse world, everything had already died while he is suffering from a mutation thats currently infecting his mind.

I could continue this story but the chances are that he might come back and instead summon posidon to flood me are kinda high....

 

[K5Rakitan]

Humans in essence are a curious animal. When we don't know something, or if we feel like someone is hiding something, our brains give off this weird feeling that makes us feel like we've got stuff to do, which is the worst feeling ever. The whole reason science and math is a thing is because we are curious creatures that wants to find out the answers to our universe. An author with this information can prey on that weakness in the reader's brain and tap into it by telling them just enough to get them drawn in, but withholding enough information to force them to be invested.

I can confirm that. My toddler got really upset today when Daddy wouldn't let him play with the mystery boxes under the kitchen sink.

 

[Deleted member 57675]

TLDR: Hide your big twists and information for later. Don't throw all your cards on the table for all to see on the very first chapter.

Now that we have the TLDR out of the way, lets get to business.

I've seen this so often with new time authors and I am guilty of this as well from when I started writing back in the day when I thought the best kind of story telling was just going from hype moment to hype moment with almost no in-between buildup. This advice is mainly for new authors since I'm sure people writing for at least a year should know this already, but here goes.

The way to hook an audience/reader base isn't by telling them everything about your story. It's about how much you refuse to tell them about your story.

Humans in essence are a curious animal. When we don't know something, or if we feel like someone is hiding something, our brains give off this weird feeling that makes us feel like we've got stuff to do, which is the worst feeling ever. The whole reason science and math is a thing is because we are curious creatures that wants to find out the answers to our universe. An author with this information can prey on that weakness in the reader's brain and tap into it by telling them just enough to get them drawn in, but withholding enough information to force them to be invested.

There's this concept called the mystery box that is brought up time and time again within stories. The mystery box takes many shapes and forms, but no matter what form it takes, it'll always share the same purpose. It's a mystery within a story that the author invented to keep the readers reading. By setting up a mystery box, it keeps readers interested in the story to figure out what's in the box and what will happen by opening it.

For a few examples of mystery boxes, there's Attack on Titan's mystery box of Grisha's basement. It's brought up time and time again in the story, but the author never specifically says what's in the basement until the end of season 3, which when revealed, it quite literally changed the entire direction of the story going forward.

Another example is Satella in Re:Zero. As far as the readers/watchers learn about Satella, they know she's a witch that killed all the other witches and was then killed herself which her sin of killing the witches made her name sort of cursed in the setting of the story. The author also details that she is most likely the cause of why Subaru keeps on reviving after death, but we don't realize her motives until way later, but those hidden motives is what keeps people engaged in the path Subaru walks.

Without a proper mystery box, the readers will read your story and drop it almost right away. The only way to keep someone reading without a mystery box is if the author introduced so many moving parts within the story, that the reader will want to see what machine the gears will create once they turn on. There are many ways to do a mystery box too.

There's what I like to call the obvious mystery box where the author directly states in the story that this certain thing is important and it needs to be found out at all cost. Grisha's basement fits into this category well. There's my favorite type of mystery box being the subtle mystery box where its presented in the story, but the reader never realizes its a mystery box until the reveal happens. It creates this sort of 'What The Fuck' moment in the reader as they realize that the thing you were talking about five chapters ago was building up to something massive. Then they'll go back and point out all the foreshadowing leading up to the moment.

Mystery boxes can also take all sorts of form. Of course, it can take the form of a box, but that's rather uncreative. It can also take the form of a power the MC has. Maybe it can be the mystery box can be a person. Hell, why not go balls to the walls crazy and make an entire city or landmass a mystery box. As long as there's a mystery that can push the story forward, it'll work.

Now, what got me into wanting to make this in the first place? Well, I read the first chapter of a story from the story feedback forum, and the dude on there linked his story. The first dude who responded said it looked good, so that got my interest peaked. So, I read it and it turns out the entire first chapter is just a big infodump with no class in the info dumping. It's just a character talking to their inner demon about neo-humans or whatever. The idea of the story was fine, but the information wasn't told in an interesting way, and in my opinion it would've been better if they just never said that info at all and waited to reveal it later in the story. I let them know that and they thanked me for the criticism, which got me to thinking.

This happens all the time with new authors, and there's no shame in it. But, if no one ever spells this out, then they won't realize this crucial information and then go on their merry way and not learn better. The reason new authors are so prone to this mistake I'd say is because of anxiety. They want to show all their cards, hoping that by doing so it will grab the readers attention, but what it actually does is give them nothing to latch onto. I know because I did the exact same thing on my first ever story where I overthrew the entire government I created in the same chapter I introduced it.

I want newer authors to learn this stuff, which is why I'm posting this, especially since this site has a lot of new authors. I want to read some amazing stories that no one else can come up with except the person writing them. Hopefully this advice can help at least one person starting out their story.

Sounds like a show don't tell thing tbh...
Not that people need to follow it to a T as people often get confused by it, but some need to not infodump so much that it sounds more like a dictionary than an opening chapter.

 

[BearlyAlive]

Hey, nothing better to unhook people than a big brown info dump right from the start