The Limits of Teasing Readers

[Peg Herring]

Okay, Author, you've got a big secret in your book, something that happened to the main character in the past that has a bearing on how he/she acts today. Here are Peg's rules for dealing with it:

First, refer to it sparingly. I get tired of being reminded that there's something you know that I don't.

Second, make the clues progressive, so I have a chance of figuring it out, at least partly, before the end.

Third, the secret had better be good enough when I get there to justify the hints and clues. I want to feel what the character felt and decide I might have had the same reaction.

 

I guess it's pretty obvious that I just finished a book with such a secret. I got tired of the vague hints that kept coming up but never added to my understanding of the character. And in the end, I thought the author hurried through the explanation so that I never got the sense of experiencing the terrible event with the protagonist. He was so well drawn in the rest of the book that I felt cheated by being left out of his life-defining moment. I felt like I'd been teased all along, and then the author just walked away. Authors shouldn't do that.