A Chicken Sandwich on Wheat Toast, Hold the Lettuce, Hold the Tomato, Hold the Mayo, Hold the Chicken

withholding dramatic information--a strategy for creating narrative tension and/or suspense; keeping information from the reader or one or more characters; using the curiosity or lack thereof in a character to influence agenda; creating awareness in the reader and/or characters of secrets relating to the theme or actual outcome of a story.

Story, however ambiguous in nature or elliptical in orbit, is an outgrowth of a natural inclination to assign narrative to events, whether they are as complex and intertwined as generational family history (and thus a search for unifying theme) or as seemingly random as boy-meets-girl, boy-meets-boy, or girl-meets girl. Story is implicitly and sometimes explicitly a tale told to provide evidence that life has a meaning, that certain events were ordained if not pre-ordained, that human behavior and destiny is not merely a series of random events, atomic particles spinning about in a reactor or collider that has been turned off for the night. Thus the domino theory (see), causality (see), and determinism; thus the parallel between story and the precedent-setting direction of many forms of legal evolution.

The skilled writer accordingly has learned to withhold vital information, making the reader curious about it, avid for more. Thus curiosity ranks just below tension and suspense as an important mortar, holding the isolated bricks of dramatic detail together. Until the reader has become interested to the point of empathy, details about a particular character often bore more than they illustrate. Some of the background material, for instance, about Eilis Lacey, Colm Toibin's protagonist in his 2009 novel, Brooklyn, is inconsequential until the reader has seen Eilis performing in social situations, at which point they become poignant to the point of being heart wrenching: this information has been artfully manipulated so that it appears to emerge from the character rather than Post-It notes from the author.

"Never tell the reader more than the reader wants to know" is an effective restraint for the reader to keep in mind: Withhold, then pay out in slow, incident-related doses. The downside of too much withholding can be seen in fiction such as the novels of Ian McEwan (see Saturday; The Innocent;The Child in Time), where the secrets to be discovered and the defining moments present on closer consideration the image of a highly skilled dealer at a casino rather than, however bravura his technique, a story teller such as Michael Chabon (see The Wonder Boys; Secrets of Pittsburgh; and The Yiddish Policeman's Union).

What is the right balance between withholding and being manipulative? First of all, forget any stigma attached to the word "manipulative;" all story tellers manipulate, having chosen the beginning point of the story and the ending payoff at the very least. Secondly, write from your own point of curiosity, playing to your own rate of discovery. Third, try not to attach too complex a meaning to things deliberately held in secret, traumas from past events that were completely or semi-occluded, or repressed memories suddenly unloosed on the consciousness.

Withhold

withhold--a narrative strategy for delaying the presentation of vital dramatic information; a dramatic device for creating tension if not outright suspense in a story by means of causing the reader to wonder about a detail, event, or meaning.

Readers are natural matchmakers; they will speculate on the potential embers of romantic attraction bursting into flames when characters exchange glances or respond edgily to one another, seeing sexual tension everywhere, whether intended by the writer or not. Readers will wonder and make outrageous assumptions. Let them. They will suspect the suspects in a mystery for reasons other than those intended by the writer. Let them.

Writers who read their work in classes or writers' groups will frequently be enjoined to bring the story to a screeching halt by injecting physical descriptions and details of attitudes and beliefs. This is done in the spirit of wanting to be helpful, in pointing out to the writer the need for details that humanize the characters. Trouble is, such details are irrelevant and actual albatrosses until the reader is made curious about them in the first place. The proof of the reading resides in the curiosity itching away at these literal minds who ask for details. Most habitual readers can and will continue reading a story without knowing what color a character's eyes are or what she is wearing. Particularly if the character is involved in some activity such as arguing or asserting her independence or difference of opinion.

Some accomplished writers never describe characters, wanting readers to supply their own vision; their use of description and/or explanation is limited, conveyed by indirection rather than description. Prolific writers often limit their descriptions of characters and of settings to elements that reveal qualities by implication. Denise Mina, for instance, is at greater pains to describe her protagonist Paddy Meehan's attempts at dietary precautions than she is to provide actual references to body configuration, and as a result, when Paddy overindulges, the reader feels a sympathy for her interior climate.

Nor are detailed reasons for a character's behavior likely to impart greater gravity or conviction to a that character's behavior. Often such descriptions are the first things that can be removed in the revision process.

Hint: Make them want it, which they will if it is not presented too soon.

Hanging in the Balance

A mantra is a series of words or syllables which combine the names or aspects of the godhead and are intended as an adjunct to meditation. The word has its roots in Sanskrit, which is itself intended as a language by which to convey the meaning and intensity of mystical scripts, formulas, chants, and poems. To make matters even more intriguing, the words used in Sanskrit-based mantras are encapsulations of the personalities of gods and goddesses are additionally special, meaning that even a person who has some Sanskrit is not likely to use these so-called bija or jewel words except when chanting or meditating on mantras that contain them.

This is probably more than you wanted to know about mantras and Sanskrit and bija words, just as Melville probably, now that you think about it, told you more about whales than you want to know. But the fact is that there are mantras for the writing and telling of story; they are not in Sanskrit nor do they have bija words in them. One of the more powerful mantras for story telling is: Never take the reader where the reader wants to go. Meditating on this mantra has caused many aspiring writers to understand how important it is not to tell the reader too much about whales until the reader is sufficiently invested in the story that he has to suffer the stuff on whales to find out what happens to the characters. When the reader is sufficiently caught up in the story, the writer can successfully thrown in a chapter or two about whales and although the reader may ultimately complain, the reader will, as some recent characters in American political activities have put it, stay the course.

Another mantra of significant value to the writer is the single word withhold, a word and concept not to be taken lightly. The reader reads to be made interested in characters who take on a bigger-than-life resonance, continuing to read to see what happens to the characters. At more or less the moment the reader finds out, the story is over. In answer then to the question, when does a story end, the answer becomes When the reader finds out what happens. In exaggerated theory, the ideal place for the discovery or revelation or even the backstory-as-explanation is the penultimate chapter of a novel because, cumbersome as such an arrangement might be, the reader would put up with it to find out what happens. Come to think of it, the reader would even put up with all that stuff about whales to find out what happened to Ishmael.

The product created by withholding is suspense.

Suspense is the glue that holds stories together.

Mantras may lead to insight, even mystical union. Suspense leads to dramatic discovery.