How to withhold information without frustrating the reader

Red herrings, twists, and playing with reader assumptions

I recently saw a short film that blew me away and left me thinking about an aspect of story that I haven’t discussed here before.

Naturally, that excited me, because I often feel like I’ve discussed everything there is to discuss about craft, sometimes many times over. A topic I haven’t covered? Hooray! I basically ran to my keyboard.

To kick this off, you need to watch a short film called The Wait. It’s only four minutes long, so it will be quick, and it’s absolutely worth your time, I promise. Go on, I’ll wait.

Wow, right?

I want to acknowledge that a big reason why this piece is so successful comes down to the acting. In weaker actors’ hands, this wouldn’t have been nearly as powerful.

But the other thing that makes the film standout is the “twist.” I’m not even sure we can call it a twist; the film simply knows that its viewers will assume certain things to be true, and that they can then reveal a small bit of information that will change everything.

This got me thinking about the assumptions that readers (or viewers!) can make when consuming story…. And how we as writers can use those assumptions to our advantage.

The audience’s baggage

All readers (and viewers) bring their own baggage to the table when they consume story. This includes their lived experiences, their opinions, values, prejudices, dreams, fears, you name it.

For example, when I first watched The Wait, it was impossible for me to set aside my own experiences as a pregnant person. I’ve got two kids, and with both those pregnancies, once I was clearly showing, I fielded comments from strangers all the time. Advice that I didn’t ask for. Inquiries about when I was due. Remarks about how I must be feeling. And on and on.

It didn’t matter how well-intentioned these comments were, eventually I tired of them. I didn’t want to talk about how exciting it was to be 38wks pregnant when I could no longer sleep well at night and putting on shoes had become ridiculously challenging. Nor did I want advice about how to adjust to being a family of four when I was simply trying to complete an errand with my three-year-old in tow.

So while watching The Wait, as soon as the man leaned over and asked the woman when she was due, I tensed. My own baggage and experiences put me on edge for her. And then I tensed even more when she looked aghast. I worried that the man had made a mistake and she wasn’t pregnant at all. But no, she admits she is. Phew. From there, an awkward and stilted conversation takes place, becoming emotional and intimate, and I began to relax just slightly. And then bam—that final reveal hits.

That rollercoaster of emotions would never have happened for me if after the man’s initial question, the woman had simply replied, “Dad, you know I’m 21 weeks.”

The filmmakers/writers hold on to that crucial bit of information and let us, the viewer, fill in the gaps. They let us fill the quiet with our assumptions. And that’s where the magic happens.

The upside to assumptions

The film The Wait knows that it can’t hold back everything. It confirms that the woman is indeed pregnant by the 1-minute mark. But they don’t give us much else, and plenty of vagueness and uncertainty remains. What is the man’s intention with these questions? Why is the woman so standoffish?

The filmmakers let us assume things. Maybe the man is nosey, or clueless, or lonely. Is the woman simply exhausted? Rude? Wanting a bit of privacy but then kindly engaging a stranger?

Our assumptions fill the quiet space.

This reminds me of the classic Lovecraftian/weird horror advice to not show the monster, because nothing is scarier than what the reader will imagine. The reader will fill the unknown with their biggest fears, and that is far more effective than anything we, the writer, can confirm on the page.

Obviously, The Wait isn’t filled with monsters, but the concept still applies, and it can work in many genres. If we let the reader make assumptions, a later reveal/twist can force things into a shocking new light, completely pulling the rug from beneath the reader.

When did you put things together in The Wait? It clicked for me a second or two before the actual reveal, but this didn’t diminish my enjoyment of the movie. If anything, it strengthened it. Of course this was the twist. It made perfect sense. It was my assumptions that led me down the wrong path! In this sense, playing on the readers’ assumptions is the cousin of writing a red herring into your story.

Red herrings

By definition, a red herring is a deliberate piece of misleading information within a story. This can be a literal piece of info, like the line about red herrings in the poem in Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None, or an object, event, or even an actual character, someone suspicious we assume to be bad but is later revealed to be good, or vice versa.

If we leave a few details unconfirmed in our stories, the readers will fill those empty spaces with their assumptions, and those assumptions can turn into a red herring of sorts, leading the reader astray before things come crashing into clarity.

One of the best examples of this from my recent memory is The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward. This book includes some traditional red herrings—secondary characters who distract from the truth—but the novel also does a fantastic job of leaving enough openings in its layered mystery for the reader to begin assuming things. Ward trusts that her reader is smart enough to put things together, and then once the reader does, she reveals her true cards.

Another good and recent example is Wrong Place, Wrong Time by Gillian McAllister. Like Ward, McAllister reveals some cards—just enough to make the reader think they’ve solved the mystery—only later to confirm that our assumptions were wrong. The twist then shocks, but also makes perfect sense. So much so, that I felt silly for not seeing it all along. (The best type of twist, if you ask me.)

My experiences reading Needless and Wrong Place were a lot like watching the short film The Wait. Sure, the genres could not be more different, but the end result was the same. My assumptions led me down one path, the truth revealed something completely different, and I didn’t feel cheated, I felt impressed.

Readers feel cheated when a twist comes out of nowhere and still feels confusing or forced even after it’s been explained. But when the twist is revealed and the reader goes HOLY CRAP, of course!… Well, that’s a fantastic twist that likely made clever use of red herrings while also playing off the readers’ assumptions.

Doing this well requires subtly. You have to withhold a little. But you can’t hold back so much that the reader feels like they’re being strung along.

Applying it to your own work

Every story will require unique approaches, but if you’d like to play off the readers’ assumptions in your own writing, here are few things to keep in mind as you plan, draft, and revise:

• Know your ending up front. Or at the very least, aim to figure out the ending asap! The sooner you know the twist and what “truth” will be revealed, the smoother drafting/revising will be.

• Working backwards from that final reveal, drop clues and hints within your story. If these clues can have dual meanings, even better. Present them so that the reader can latch on to one meaning and you can later reveal the other meaning to be true.

  • Example: In Dustborn, tons of worldbuilding details support the big twist confirmed in the final third of the book, but until you get there, these details merely feel like classic building blocks of the world.

• Consider the relationships between all characters, particularly the hero and their allies and opponents. What are these characters’ motives? What do they want from each other? Do any of these relationships lend themselves toward a character red herring?

  • Example: In S1E1 of Firefly, the viewer assumes Simon Tam is a government spy because of how closed off and secretive he is. But he’s a fugitive from the law, trying to get his sister somewhere safe. His motives lead him to act like a spy, setting up a perfect red herring.

• Consider when and where you introduce red herrings… and what sort of assumptions a reader will make as a result.

  • Example: Joe finding his stolen laptop in Sally’s room will lead the reader to different assumptions that Sally finding Joe’s stolen laptop in her own room.

• Pace your reveals carefully and purposefully. You can only be vague for so long. It’s okay to keep your true cards hidden, but you need to be revealing smaller pieces of truth as you move toward the climax.

  • In The Wait, the film confirms that the woman is pregnant, then that she’s so scared because she’s alone/has no partner, then that her father is sick, and only at the very climax do we put together that her sick father is the man she’s been talking to all along. The viewer doesn’t feel strung along because they got small pieces of truth along the way to the big reveal.

  • If you’re unsure whether to hold on to a reveal or not, consider if revealing it now will increase or decrease tension. Often times the thing we are set on withholding because we think it adds mystery will only produce a frustrated reader; having the reveal sooner may actually up tension and increase reader investment.

As you work to play off readers’ assumptions in your stories, remember that there is a fine line between withholding too much information and being purposefully vague/misleading. Like many aspects of craft, mastering this balance is an acquired skill. Critique partners and early reads can be a huge help. And of course, when you read a twist that surprises and impresses you, really dissect the story and try to figure out why the twist worked so well.

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What are your favorite examples from fiction that play with readers’ assumptions? Please tell me in the comments, and let me know what you thought of The Wait while you’re at it.

Until next time,

Erin Bowman is the critically acclaimed author of numerous books for children and teens, including the Taken Trilogy, Vengeance Road, Retribution Rails, the Edgar Award-nominated Contagion duology, The Girl and the Witch’s Garden, and Dustborn. A web designer turned author, Erin has always been invested in telling stories—both visually and with words. Erin lives in New Hampshire with her husband and children.