I had an interesting conversation with a co-worker about teasing readers. The idea came up because she was reading a mystery book and there was an object that kept making a curious appearance, but there didn't seem to be any actual importance to it. My guess is that the writer was only using the object as a way of giving a personality quirk.
So, when does such a thing go from a simple quirk and morph into a tease for the reader? Well, whenever something keeps getting mentioned, it necessarily draws attention to itself. Of course it does, you might say. There are wonderful times to do this, especially for foreshadowing, red herrings, or simply to give the reader insights that aren't otherwise obvious.
But, this can also be a not-too-subtle way of poking the reader in all the wrong places. In the mentioned mystery, my co-worker kept trying to assign importance to this object, but failed to find anything at all. Now the reader is frustrated, searching for something that isn't happening at all.
As a writer, that revelation gave me pause. I love to give my characters some sort of quirk, but repeated mention drives the story away from story and into details that probably have nothing to do with what I want to say. I think I'll do better knowing to watch out for that as I edit.
- M
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