The last few weeks have been pretty crazy. I was supposed to travel to New Orleans for a work thing. Then Debby rolled. My flight was through Charlotte, North Carolina (the other layover location choice being Florida); the second leg was canceled before I left DC. I never got a new flight and drove a rental car home.

Disrupted my entire week. I felt like a stick floating in the Potomac at Great Falls. Then Debbie reached DC, and I worked overtime on Saturday and Sunda (only an hour, but it was like throwing a stone in a stream. It disrupted the flow).

I’ve been taking an online class on information flow. Disappointing—essentially a rehash of existing information. I got some out of J. Scott Savage’s recent course, and am taking another one in October with Carrie Vaughn (it’s for previous Odyssey attendees; otherwise, I would share).

The more I learn, the bigger the topic gets.

Probably the most visible example of it is when you read a mystery, get to the murderer reveal, and your reaction is, “Who’s that?”

That’s a botched information flow. The author didn’t want to make it obvious that Joe Villian was the murderer, so he made one appearance as an extra with dialogue.

The foundation for information flow is giving the reader the information without them knowing you’ve done it.

You never withhold information from the reader.

But you can hide it in plain sight.

I reread Harry Potter and Sorcerer’s Stone because J. K. Rowling is good at information flow. Professor Quirrell is the bad guy in the story, but she hides him in plain sight with sleight of hand. All the pieces are there, just waiting to be discovered.

Point of view is key to hiding information. If the POV character doesn’t know this thing is important, he’ll slide right on by it.

Quirrell first shows up at Diagon Alley when Harry ventures into the magic world for the first time. Quirrell is only described as a “nervous young man”—no purple turban. He’s unmemorable when Harry and the reader are being given so much shiny, new information. Harry’s a celebrity. All these strange people want to meet him. Harry sees broomsticks for sale (another piece of information flow). Hagrid gets Harry an owl. Harry gets his wand and discovers the only other wand with a feather from the same phoenix (information flow for book 2) was Voldemort’s.

These all, rightly, demand the readers’ attention. A nervous man? Not so much.

Next time Quirrell shows up, he’s wearing a purple turban. That turns into a character tag. Every time he’s on the page, that turban is mentioned. There’s a story about it that no one believes. The Wesley twins try to knock it off by throwing snowballs at the back of his head. Later, Harry will find that Voldemort’s face is on the back of Quirrell’s head.

Harry learns about a break-in at Gringotts on the day he visited and that the vault had the contents removed earlier in the day. Holy cow! That’s got to be the vault he visited! Big sleight of hand because we’re wondering what the mysterious package was, as are the characters, and no one notices that Quirrell was in the area on that day, or that he got his turban after the break in.

Harry discovers that Professor Snape hates him. Snape is standing next to Quirrell when Harry feels a sharp pain in his scar. Which, of course, is contact between him and Voldemort. But Harry sees Snape looking at him venomously, and Harry thinks it’s Snape. When Harry is nearly knocked off his broomstick, the other characters see Snape’s mouth moving in a spell and assume he’s the one cursing Harry because he hates Harry. Quirrell is standing next to him, so no one notices he’s the one cursing the broomstick.

The POV helps hide most of this. It stays in Harry’s head the entire time. He can only see Snape’s reaction to him and make assumptions—wrong assumptions.

That’s where movies do writers a disservice—especially since they’re used as primary examples for fiction. The time limits what the writers can do, so they show a lot for the viewer. So you’ll see scenes with the villains committing the crimes because they can’t show the information flow. Even the Harry Potter movie based on the book doesn’t work as well. Quirrell is wearing the purple turban in the first scene, but it misses out on all the scenes where Rowling draws attention to the turban in small ways.

This is where moving edits benefit the writer. You can go back in the story and add one sentence. You also might need to rethink what happens around the clue, like making something else stand out more.

Information flow is not just for a mystery. Use it and have fun with it.

More reading:

These are all for mystery. Evidently, like setting, everyone figures this doesn’t apply to all genres, even though it does.

The last few weeks have been pretty crazy. I was supposed to travel to New Orleans for a work thing. Then Debby rolled. My flight was through Charlotte, North Carolina (the other layover location choice being Florida); the second leg was canceled before I left DC. I never got a new flight and drove a rental car home.

Disrupted my entire week. I felt like a stick floating in the Potomac at Great Falls. Then Debbie reached DC, and I worked overtime on Saturday and Sunda (only an hour, but it was like throwing a stone in a stream. It disrupted the flow).

I’ve been taking an online class on information flow. Disappointing—essentially a rehash of existing information. I got some out of J. Scott Savage’s recent course, and am taking another one in October with Carrie Vaughn (it’s for previous Odyssey attendees; otherwise, I would share).

The more I learn, the bigger the topic gets.

Probably the most visible example of it is when you read a mystery, get to the murderer reveal, and your reaction is, “Who’s that?”

That’s a botched information flow. The author didn’t want to make it obvious that Joe Villian was the murderer, so he made one appearance as an extra with dialogue.

The foundation for information flow is giving the reader the information without them knowing you’ve done it.

You never withhold information from the reader.

But you can hide it in plain sight.

I reread Harry Potter and Sorcerer’s Stone because J. K. Rowling is good at information flow. Professor Quirrell is the bad guy in the story, but she hides him in plain sight with sleight of hand. All the pieces are there, just waiting to be discovered.

Point of view is key to hiding information. If the POV character doesn’t know this thing is important, he’ll slide right on by it.

Quirrell first shows up at Diagon Alley when Harry ventures into the magic world for the first time. Quirrell is only described as a “nervous young man”—no purple turban. He’s unmemorable when Harry and the reader are being given so much shiny, new information. Harry’s a celebrity. All these strange people want to meet him. Harry sees broomsticks for sale (another piece of information flow). Hagrid gets Harry an owl. Harry gets his wand and discovers the only other wand with a feather from the same phoenix (information flow for book 2) was Voldemort’s.

These all, rightly, demand the readers’ attention. A nervous man? Not so much.

Next time Quirrell shows up, he’s wearing a purple turban. That turns into a character tag. Every time he’s on the page, that turban is mentioned. There’s a story about it that no one believes. The Wesley twins try to knock it off by throwing snowballs at the back of his head. Later, Harry will find that Voldemort’s face is on the back of Quirrell’s head.

Harry learns about a break-in at Gringotts on the day he visited and that the vault had the contents removed earlier in the day. Holy cow! That’s got to be the vault he visited! Big sleight of hand because we’re wondering what the mysterious package was, as are the characters, and no one notices that Quirrell was in the area on that day, or that he got his turban after the break in.

Harry discovers that Professor Snape hates him. Snape is standing next to Quirrell when Harry feels a sharp pain in his scar. Which, of course, is contact between him and Voldemort. But Harry sees Snape looking at him venomously, and Harry thinks it’s Snape. When Harry is nearly knocked off his broomstick, the other characters see Snape’s mouth moving in a spell and assume he’s the one cursing Harry because he hates Harry. Quirrell is standing next to him, so no one notices he’s the one cursing the broomstick.

The POV helps hide most of this. It stays in Harry’s head the entire time. He can only see Snape’s reaction to him and make assumptions—wrong assumptions.

That’s where movies do writers a disservice—especially since they’re used as primary examples for fiction. The time limits what the writers can do, so they show a lot for the viewer. So you’ll see scenes with the villains committing the crimes because they can’t show the information flow. Even the Harry Potter movie based on the book doesn’t work as well. Quirrell is wearing the purple turban in the first scene, but it misses out on all the scenes where Rowling draws attention to the turban in small ways.

This is where moving edits benefit the writer. You can go back in the story and add one sentence. You also might need to rethink what happens around the clue, like making something else stand out more.

Information flow is not just for a mystery. Use it and have fun with it.

More reading:

These are all for mystery. Evidently, like setting, everyone figures this doesn’t apply to all genres, even though it does.