While away recently I took quite a few pictures of signs and signposts, and I thought about this the other day as I was working on my latest novel, provisionally called ‘The Last House’ or ‘The Lost House’. It’s really important to have signals, signs and pointers in a novel , especially if you want a really good ending with a believable surprise.
I really care about endings, they can’t just be the end of the narrative, they have to be structured and worked on and as carefully crafted as every other part of the story – maybe more so. It isn’t only mystery and crime writers who want to have a big reveal at the ending, other stories sometimes need surprises, but in order for the surprise to work it has to be believable, it has to fit in with everything which has been established about the characters, their personalities, their history, the situations and relationships. This is where signs and signals come in.
I had known my husband for a very long time before we actually started dating, and we knew very quickly that ‘this was it’, however we didn’t tell our friends for a while, wanting to enjoy our early time together in private. When we eventually we did announce our relationship, the big ‘reveal’, our friends were absolutely shocked – in the nicest possible way, they could hardly believe it, we seemed the unlikeliest couple. But then as we sat together they began to remember times they had seen us together, or had noticed us talking to each other, or one or the other of us giving the other a lift somewhere… there had been signs and signals, and now they remembered them. This was twenty-five years ago and we are still very happily together, but we still chuckle over the surprise we gave our friends.
It is a fine balance, setting up the reveal so it is believable and appreciated and appropriate and a big, big surprise. Signs have to be subtle, but they have to be memorable, and sometimes there have to be reminders too. I have a surprise in ‘The Lost/Last House’ and I am carefully building the details, making them clear and memorable, so that when eventually the secret is explained it is feasible and realistic.
Lois Elsden 