: 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

@Eichhorn147

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What I try to do when hiding clues is to make the POV character misinterpret them believably. Using your example, what if the MC knew a cross-dressing man who was generally accepted and commonly called Auntie So-and-so? This gives a plausible reason for the MC to mistakenly take for granted that everyone else knows auntie is a man.

The principle I'm trying to describe is that there need to be at least two plausible interpretations for clues hidden in plain sight. It has already been mentioned that one technique for doing this is dialogue (a clue) that can be interpreted multiple ways. Each interpretation of a hidden clue needs to fit into a self-consistent theory of the truth, only one of which is completely right. By having many clues all reinforce that same mistaken theory, it can be quite the surprise when a new clue contradicts the theory.

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