Out for a walk around our village and I discovered this sign pointing the way to a footpath; I’d been along the footpath and had probably glanced at the sign, but didn’t realise until today that it had an actual metal hand pointing which way to go. Is this literally a fingerpost, I wondered. I’d always called signs on a post indicating direction and distances a sign post, and the word ‘fingerpost’ didn’t register with me until the novel by Iain Pears, ‘An Instance of the Fingerpost’. The fingers on a fingerpost are the pointers, which I had always called arms. There is a very old sign post darted 1669, which pre-dates legislation bringing in signage twenty-eight years later.
I was thinking about signs, and pointing and showing which way to go when I was talking to a friend about the different plot lines in my story. It’s as if I’m taking readers along a path, showing them which way to go and describing the scenery on the way and the characters they meet on the journey. I want the destination to be a surprise although they will have some idea of the outcome. For example the story I am writing at the moment has a plot line about flowers left on a grave; the reader must be pretty sure that the mysterious flower-leaver will be revealed, and because of the characters involved may well have a pretty good idea of who is leaving them – in this case, it is not a big reveal but when it does come I want the reader to feel it is plausible from the clues and signs I’ve given them.
There is another plot line about a rather unpleasant person, and again, I am pretty sure the readers know he will get his come-uppance, but in this case when the mystery about him is revealed I hope it will be a surprise and unexpected… unexpected but believable, again because of the pointers I have dropped in. Once they know the reveal, they should be able, if they so wanted, to look back and see all the hints I’ve given.
As a reader I find it annoying and frustrating if I get in a muddle when I’m reading and have to keep looking back and rereading bits to find out what is going on. It’s also irritating if something is revealed which is unexpected and I have to go back and try and find the subtle pointers, the too subtle pointers the writer has left me. In real life, getting lost can be annoying, especially when you retrace your path and find that the sign post is concealed in some undergrowth, has worn out so the writing is no longer visible, or is just pointing in the wrong direction.
If you haven’t read any of my novels, you can find them on Amazon as Kindle e-books:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=lois+elsden
Lois Elsden 