: Re: Slow buildup vs sudden introduction Let's say you're writing super hero fiction. The hero of your story is struggling against the villain, but suddenly awakens a power that allows him to best

@Steve161

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The "Build up to it" route is the conventional way to tell the story. The progression is more or less linear. The protagonist's struggle to unlock the power is bound together with his struggle against the villain.

The "Introduce suddenly, explain later" route offers you several interesting, not mutually exclusive possibilities.

If your protagonist goes into a fight against the villain knowing that he does not have the power to defeat him, that in fact this is a doomed fight, the moment of finding the new power can be framed as a moment of eucatastrophe, of grace.
Once the new power has been found, you have on your hands a mystery: how to use it consistently, why it showed up now, etc.

The "mystery" aspect plays an interesting role in Naomi Novik's Uprooted: about a quarter of the way into the story, the MC does something which is considered impossible, though she doesn't know it at the time. This later leads to a re-examination of what is and isn't possible, how and why.

An important aspect of "Introduce suddenly, explain later" is that you absolutely must explain later. Otherwise it's a Deus ex Machina.

What option you ultimately pick has to do with the themes of your story, what story you want to tell. Do you want to tie the search for the power with the struggle against the Big Bad? Choose the first. Do you want your story to be about re-examining what is considered possible? Choose the second. Is the hard choice connected to accepting the power? Choose the first. Is the choice related to now having the power? Choose the second.

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