: How do I deliver a historical plot reveal? Right before the climax of my scifi fantasy novel, there's a big reveal about who the bad guys really are and how they influenced the magic system

This setup had two problems:

A) How to technically deliver a reveal about something that happened in the distant past such that it's cool to read about. How to show something that essentially isn't there to see for about a million years.

B) Making it emotionally satisfying --> stakes.

A) Narrative techniques

Stories are about delivering information. The way you deliver it often makes the difference between how that information is received. After thinking long and hard, I realized there simply aren't that many narrative techniques to deliver information:

1) Exposition is always worst. Telling readers through narration any kind of information can be flat, dull, and unexciting, which leads to writing an infodump.

2) Dialog is the next step up. Mixing information in dialog is like putting spinach in the blender to feed it to your kiddy hidden in their fruit juice. If you manage to make a fun concoction, all good. If not, they're going to spit it back out.

3) Showing or dramatization is the enactment of the reveal through actions that unroll before the readers' eyes. This is almost always the best narrative technique (except specific cases).

Everything that can be communicated in a story reduces to seeing it, hearing about it (dialog), or being told a summary (exposition).

Here, I needed to reveal past action. There was stuff to show, not just ideas, but I couldn't directly show it because the action had already finished. Something bothered me about it, it felt disembodied and distant. I thought it's because the characters can't participate directly in it, i.e. see it. I thought upping my narrative game is enough and maybe it would've been but something still felt off. I was not satisfied.

B) Stakes

A narrative technique like showing can't fix them. Though mine was a historical event, I found ways to dramatize it -- show it -- through something like a hologram, or some recording (these are not narrative techniques themselves but ways to implement the narrative technique of showing). It still didn't feel like it worked. I went one step further and came up with a minor technology that relays sensory information, i.e. make it "real", so I can pull readers into the scene with it. Something was still missing.

The biggest problem with something that happened in the past is that you can't stop it. You can't walk in on the bad guys, pull out a weapon, and demand them to stop. So then, what is at stake? What is the point of watching this reveal other than "it's cool" and "we waited the whole book to find it out"?

That's what felt off.

What can be at stake?

1) The long-time-ago reveal still influences the present (or it wouldn't matter - this was my problem, I wanted it to matter). You can't prevent it from happening, but you have reason to want to stop it now, reverse the damage, or you'll have consequences, die, the world ends etc.

2) In my case, the characters found out about the reveal in the first place because the magic had one of them seriously affected and they were due to die. And the other main cast cared, which amped stakes.

3) My reveal also implied that others will be soon affected too, if they weren't already, so there still was something to be stopped by tweaking the way the magic worked, even though the characters couldn't prevent the bad guys from altering the magic system a long-time-ago.

Last step: Tying it up

After setting up stakes and deciding on narrative delivery, the last step for creating an exciting reveal is to connect the reveal with its consequences and show real world impact to put it into perspective for readers. That's how the feeling I was trying to touch a ghost went away.

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I'd say take an example from Star Trek. Remember that movie about the whales? Yeah. They had this build. Big bad guy rolling up. What are they here for? No one knows. The devastating message destroying the planet is being directed at the oceans. On a whim, they decide to see what the message would sound like underwater. Slowly they tuned the machine until, bam. Whale song. Whales were highly intelligent aliens that could transmit intergalactic status reports with their bodies, and this ship was sent to check up on them because they hadn't received a signal in so long. The signal was so strong due to being accustomed to long distance communication that they were unwittingly destroying the planet. This was doing rhe opposite of what you want. Introducing a bad guy and then revealing they're not the bad guy. Just do the mirror opposite. Have the bad guys revealed. You dont know what they want or what they do. They're just there. You don't even know if they're necessarily bad or not. They may even be viewed as good, or as a benevolent myth. However you want. Then have someone study pure magic, then find that it's not pure anymore. "It looks like, yes, it seems like some outside source has tampered with the magic! If that's so, it must have always been tampered with! Who would do such a thing?" Then have conspiracy theories tie in and loop together, explaining all the intricacies along the way, until the final loophole can be filled by revealing it was that group of people all along! Then if there's any loose ends, explain it away.

Alternatively you could go the Prometheus route. Have the holograms show bits and pieces. Maybe a red herring. False bad guys. Then at last reveal that, oh, oh my gosh, the aliens set a course for earth? Before there was life on earth? These aliens are the creators of humans? Why? In the movie it doesn't explain farther than that, but just put in like logs and records outside of the holograms. "What?! They affected the magic for all these years?! How?!" "I found this record right here! It says..." whatever you want it to say. Or have some wise man or village elder or something tell the whole origin story.

You have so many ways to do it, I'm having a hard time narrowing it down. I've given you two extremes. 1) all the information and then the reveal. 2) the reveal and then all of the information. You can mix it all up. As long as for the rest of the story you make absolutely no connection, whatsoever, that this group of people has anything at all to do with it, and then in the reveal it actually makes sense how they made everyone think they were innocent, your readers will be shocked. Your options are literally like a vast orchard right before the first harvest. Go and pluck

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In my experience, the simpler the reveal, the more shocking it is. A lot of technical detail at that point in the story dilutes the impact. Without knowing the details of the story, it might be useful to present these technical details as one completing explanation of the magic.

For example, "Hill people used to think that X was the source of magic; probably some of them still do. The swamp people knew better and thought that Y was the source of magic; the darker the swamp, the stronger the belief. The river people were sure that Z was the source. Of course, the rational folks were sure that none of them had a clue. Not a single definition of magic fit all of the facts that were plain for all to see. For example, X magic required animal sacrifice while Y magic revered all life and chanted its way to results. And do not get me started on Z magic. It just seemed like all of these so-called magic systems were excuses to hurl insults and shit at each other."

So now we have the conflict necessary for great story telling. The differences in beliefs cause differences in behaviors. All of this must be described and discussed. With some effort, almost all of the information needed to wrap up the story can be out there in plain sight, slightly disreputable and largely discredited. The final blow off can be summed up in the cry, "The hill/swamp/river people lied when they said that they no longer engaged in a-made-up ritual. The truth is that they dance around the fire covered in blue paint every Saturday night until the ugly monster stirs and shits gold." Or something like that.

The story leads the reader down the path of disbelief until the reader stumbles into the clearing where blue people are grabbing the droppings of a strange monster who dances around a fire. Oops! In a paragraph or two, the details are revealed, the implications are explored, the recriminations are expressed, and the truth is known. Slight of hand transferred to the page. Great fun if it is done right.

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