: Re: How to hide something in plain sight (and keep it hidden)? I’d like to include in a story “mysteries” and deceptions that (ideally) should be obvious in hindsight (By obvious, I mean "elephant

@XinRu607

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I would scatter a lot of small, subtle clues throughout the text. The idea is that no single clue will give it away, and they’re disparate enough to prevent the reader from putting 2 and 2 and 2 and 2 together and getting 8. But, on a second reading, in hindsight, they should all clearly be clues pointing to the big secret. “Ah! Of course, that’s what that meant!”

A few examples plucked from bookshelves and memory:

Steven Gould, Wildside. A character with a big secret, not revealed until the end, but many clues before then.
Spider Robinson, Time Pressure. Likewise.
Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go. Here, the secret is about society at large. Many hints throughout, but the full picture needs to be explained at the climax. The hints are not very disparate or subtle, though; more like a picture being gradually revealed, bit by bit, then the rest of the mask torn off at the end.

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