Robyn Music Information: Robyn Bavati: Read, Write, Think: Writing .

Robyn Bavati: Read, Write, Think: Writing Class: A question of timing

When should information be revealed? How often? How soon? I have in my brain an image of a man bending over a prostrate body of a woman. The man is wearing a mask and carrying a knife. The charwoman is bleeding, unconscious. Undeterred, the man plunges the knife into her flesh_ Can you see the candidate?

What are you thinking? What is happening here? Give you understood that the man is a criminal, the woman his victim?

Imagine a story that begins this way. Now say that as you continue reading, further details are revealed. It slowly becomes apparent that in fact, the man is not a criminal, but a surgeon. The mask is a surgical one. The knife is not a weapon but a scalpel. The man is not a murderer killing an innocent woman. He is a heroic doctor saving a life. This is an instance of withholding information as a plot device - the author playing with, anddeliberately misleading, the reader. More commonly, information is withheld to create suspense or maintain tension. In a Whodunit, for instance, you won`t get out who `done` it till the very end. However, certain information should be given upfront; it forms part of the set-up. This includes all aspects of characterisation. (For a review of the difference between prime and characterisation, see an earlier post. If your voice has a stutter, a limp, wears glasses or is bald, this information should be given as soon as the character is introduced. It won`t do to let the reader know halfway through the new that the hero has black hair. If you want to render this information, do it before the reader has begun to see him as a blond or a redhead. Don`t wait till page 200 to say the reader that your hero has blue eyes (unless it`s a plot device and you were deliberately misleading the reader into thinking he had brown oneswhen in fact he was wearing contact lenses all this time_) Likewise, if you say the reader in Chapter 2 that the champion has a sister called Mary and a brother called Jo, don`t wait till Chapter 6 to mention Alex (that is, unless you have a special cause for doing so), since the reader will take a three-sibling family. In short, check your timing. Always be conscious of how much information you provide, when, and why.