How long would you keep a secret?

[Zhengo]

Lots of stories have some kind of mystery element to them, not just those in the mystery genre. The question is, how long should you keep the mystery, a mystery? Should you set it up in the beginning of the story and reveal it early on or halfway through the story, or do you save it 'til the very end?

I've realized that unless said mystery is very important to the central plot, it is kind of risky to keep the secret for too long, especially in this day and age when people can share theories online. Having a mystery last a long time builds up hype, and oftentimes there's bound to be people who are going to end up disappointed when the big reveal happens. I also think it could be a detriment to keep the reveal hidden for a long time if said reveal has effects on one or more character arcs, and it could end up creating loose threads in said arcs, which would be a problem if you save a mystery until very late in the story, meaning that there'd be little time to clean up said loose threads.

But that's just my opinion, what are your guys' feelings on mysteries and twists and how to set them up, reveal them, etc.?

[Maps]

Well, I’m near chapter 95ish of my novel and I haven’t fully confirmed my “secret” yet. But what I did do about half way was drop a chapter that set the secret up, where my readers were like “ohhh shiiiii”!
So they were able to catch on and understand where it’s going, while the characters are still oblivious. So now the anticipation is there for the characters to find out, rather than the readers.

[indagold]

I mean nothings really a secret in storytelling if you read far enough to figure it out unless its specifically meant to be open ended. I feel like baiting your audience is a fanservice in of itself kinda, like never hold off on something just cause you feel like your fanbase might be affected by it. It starts feeling poorly paced when you can't let the secret organically build. If the secret appears at the very end of the book, who cares? We can't please everyone.

[vothnthorvaldson]

There is no big, central secret in my comic, but there are a lot of things unsaid, more or less dissimulated, false rumors not disproved, etc, for 2 or 3 generations. They will be revealed little by little, and some are strong plot elements.

But it's dissimulation in general, rather than a specific secret, that is important in my comic.

[arcojawa]

Heck, a few of the bits of foreshadowing I've introduced in the comic won't be resolved until the tail end of the entire story. But I think it varies. You don't want to spoil everything quickly, but there should be big reveals evenly spaced throughout your story -to keep people interested!
It could probably help keep a good pace if you break your story into arcs (or chapters or series or whatever you want to call them). Decide on things to reveal within the first arc while hinting at some things that won't be revealed till the later arcs.

[amortelito]

I totally agree, I feel like nowadays the secrets tend to anger fans if they waited for too long for something that wasn't that great ( in their opinion). So I am going to spill the beans way sooner in my comic. If I want something to shock them I will not even mention it and let it be a plot twist, which some people don't like either if it feels out of the blue.
Btw I noticed that readers tend to forget stuff, so this is another point against delaying the surprises. They can be like "who was that again?"

[GabiWolf]

I think the key to a good mystery is to reveal small secrets to connect to the big secret along the way. Hints and odd behavior, that tell the story without giving the whole plot away.

My comic is not a mystery but one of my main characters has been withholding the truth and has a lot of family secrets that pertain to the plot. So showing him being uneasy when someone notices a family photo, showing him having an angry phone call, etc is all building on that. At the end of the chapter the secret he has been keeping from his friend is revealed, next chapter the relationship with his parents will be revealed. Each little secret will build up to prepare the audience for the central problem and why the series of events unfolded like it did.

[DiegoPalacios]

Theories and speculation is a strong form of engagement.

While my story is not focussed on mistery, i love to drop hints for future reveals, plot points, characters, etc, to wake up the eagle-eyed viewer`s curiosity without beaking the flow of the story.

Seeing older pages on a new light after a reveal gives a story a re-read value.

Of course, any secret of a story has a limit on how long can be kept without tiring the reader, so it`s important to be careful, specially for questions they get early on the story.

Also it`s important that the events between the question and the answer are engaging and interesting too.

[therealbereth]

@Zhengo personally, I love it when there's foreshadowing in the story. So if there's a secret you feel you just can't reveal too soon because it doesn't happen organically, drop hints along the way. Even if your readers won't catch up on them immediately, you can direct them to these little things later and have them go "OOOoooh frick!" – I love these moments when I scroll back in stories (or, traditionally speaking, flip the pages) because I feel like I have seen something before, only to then realize that I could've known all along. Only I couldn't because the final puzzle piece was missing.

I also recently read an advice on Twitter about this problem with secrets, I think it was from a literary agent. They said that you want to advertise the BEST stuff from your novel in order to garner interest; and sometimes, these best things are some little secrets that your characters don't know about quite yet. So if I were to pitch my novel to someone, I'd definitely include my 2nd protagonist's relationship to the antagonist in said pitch, even if it's only revealed in about the middle of the first act of the story.

So think about what you want your readers to know about the story's backdrop that differs from the knowledge the narrative offers your characters along the way. What effect do you want to achieve within your readers? Are they supposed to be just as shocked/surprised/whatever as your characters? Or do you want them to know beforehand, so they can empathize with your characters on their way to the truth? Or do you want to foreshadow rather than spill the beans, in order to string along your readers?

I feel it all comes down to what your goal is, really. As that differs so much from story to story, it's hard to give definitive advice, so maybe these questions give you some more pointers.

Btw I noticed that readers tend to forget stuff, so this is another point against delaying the surprises. They can be like "who was that again?"

Yeah, that's the problem with serialized content, we kinda need to drop important things more often than in "traditional" novels and comics because it takes a bit longer for things to resolve themselves. Hard to always account for our readers' memory. xD

[Azifri]

I think the key to a good mystery is to reveal small secrets to connect to the big secret along the way.

Agree with this, and it's what I've been trying to do with my story. My comic is not a mystery either, but one of the ideas is to reveal what is going on with the different characters and factions bit by bit. Since this is done based on what the main characters learn along the way, that info is not always the full version or there is more to it. Things are supposed to come together partially at the end of every season and finally at the end of the story. Whether I can achieve this, that's another story

[Jenny-Toons]

I definitely agree with @DiegoPalacios. When people leave theories and speculations, that opens up a big discussion surrounding the story, and people get hyped up.

For me, I don't mind when secret is revealed as long as it works for the story. I know for Our Universe, the big reveal is at the end. However, I've been dropping hints along the way, and people have been speculation just what exactly "Christina" is.

I think the key is leaving enough for people to pick up on but keeping enough to yourself to keep them guessing. Like, for Christina, people have already seen what she's capable of, so they're raising ideas of "goddess" "Mother Earth", "Space Goddess" "Just Earth". They're on the right track, but I keep adding more details on her and her family to hyping it up!

[elanor]

This might sound like a cop out answer, but I think secrets should be kept until the moment they have the most impact. So... That could mean do a reveal relatively quickly, or it could mean hold out until the very end. It depends on what the secret is and how it affects everything in the story.

Personally, I love it when there's a big reveal at the end of a story that turns everything on its head. (Keyser Soze. Yes, I'm old. lol)

The other fun thing is when a reveal leads to more mysteries.
"We've identified the owner of the car in yesterday's hit and run, sir."
"Really? Good."
"But there's a problem."
"What is it now?"
"The owner died six weeks ago."

My theory is that if you're holding a secret back and it's impairing the flow of the story, it's best to do a reveal. If the mystery is ramping the story up, then there's no harm in keeping it back a little longer. It is important to make sure the payoff is worth it though...

[Darkstrong]

The longer you can keep the question unanswered without the reader loosing interest - the better. How to find that balance is totally up to you though. as for the hype around your "secret" that is totally different story. Manage your readers expectations. If you tell someone that "the most exiting and unbelievable thing is to be revealed" - it doesn't really matter how soon you reveal it, the payout needs to match the promise. If your secret is the identity of the murderer, there is only so much hype can be thrown it this fire, unless you are feeding to the hype yourself.

[Iris-Grimoire]

A mix of what Elanor and Darkstrong said. The journey to the secret needs to be engaging if you're making it a long one, but also don't spill the beans because you're afraid no one will stay and wait. There's always a happy medium in a story where it's far along enough to start dropping bombshells, but don't take TOO long and obscure too much information to the point the reader doesn't want it anymore.

My story doesn't have any world wrecking twists, it's the usual small secrets: who the villains are, the origin of a character's weird symptoms, what happened to this other character. Those all end up being near the end or close enough to it, but with so many weird things about the location, I decided to not make it a secret about the realm being shut off from a bigger world and that it's not displaced in time, just less advanced, since it didn't further any character's goals by being hidden. At the most, I'm just hiding a really good gag that the characters aren't actually speaking modern english, but that's for a joke, nothing that changes your entire perspective on the cast and story.

Small world too - a buddy just sent a video about the plot twist in Final Fantasy VII and how it's structured! It's more about the secret itself than how it's put on the story, but it might help anyone with some doubts - the game's twist is split across several different scenes and yet it all comes together when they have to sit down and explain what's really going on, not at the end but getting there.

[rmdooley]

For as long as the payments keep coming...oh wait, that's for real life

For the story, keep it a secret as long as it serves the plot. Don't base it on reader interest, mysteries can always be tailored to fit the needed timeline until the reveal serves the story, not the fickleness of audience expectation

[irene_addler]

I thought this was a juicy moral dilemma post about keeping secrets, and I had the popcorn haha! I definitely like it when things are foreshadowed, and I get breadcrumbed along with the story because it's so much more satisfying when I read the ending and either was right in what I suspected, or it was a complete and utter twist and different than I expected!

[Solias]

consider my MC for Unfated had no reference to him being a wizard until the 5th chapter and my antagonist isnt using his actual name, though i have put enough clue in to see who they are. i have another secret im communicating as early as chapter 2 that i dont plan on sharing until im at the end of a third book, or in other words im not going to tell anyone about it for at least another 150K words

[snowy]

You can chop a secret up into "What ?", "How ?", "Why ?"and other relevant questions, so you can have multiple reveals over the course of the story.
Or you can just keep your secret. Never reveal it. Just use it as a plot device for character development or whatever the story is really about.

[allenT]

If I start my comic, I would let my readers in without info dumps. I like to let the readers sees the world from the character's own understanding of the world, and only show things as they are able to discover. I would not show the world's lore and secret if the story don't cover it. (I work on a fantasy comic with very small scope)

Also there are things that I choose to leave to reader's interpretations. They are not even secrets, just never be mentioned or defined: like this girl protagonist's backstory, sexuality etc... Leave them be so they can make fan theories!

[33rdCenturyCaveman]

In my time of the 33rd century, the word for "storyteller" am same as the word for "secret-keeper." It am commonly-understood that the storyteller's job am about the setting-up and judicious answering of questions. Beginning of story am time for capturing audience interest by framing questions: Who am Darth Vader? What am Death Star? What significance of blue milk? Then, as narrative progresses, audience is rewarded with answers: Ben Kenobi am Jedi Knight. Luke joins Rebellion after all. Death Star am honking big battle station.

And in larger sense, storytelling's value to society lies in storytelling's ability to tackle big philosophical questions. Questions such as: What am good? What am evil? Why am denial of one's whole nature bad idea when one am horny space wizard? Importance of any given story am ultimately dependent on whether it tries for these questions or if it am merely popcorn accompaniment.