"Cha signed quickly and Pov nodded." (names have been changed to protect the innocent)

Pov then goes on to talk with other characters. Earlier I said what Cha signed since he doesn't talk, but this time I wanted to keep it to myself for awhile. I know I can do whatever I want since I'm the author, but I wanted to know how a bunch of experienced readers would feel about this.

It may also depend upon how deep into the POV character's viewpoint you are (third omniscient or third close). The closer you are to the character's thoughts the more the reader could potentially get annoyed. If the reader feels that the "narrator" should know what the character hears (or sees in this instance) the more annoyed they may become.

Now, without seeing this in action I cannot state how I would feel. My instinct is that I would not like this since it feels as though the author is withholding information. This often does not go over well.

Now, if you're going after some sort of cliffhanger, then maybe you could do it, because a cliffhanger generally involves a certain amount of withholding. As with a lot of rules, you can get away with stuff if you know what you're doing, and moreover, why you're doing it. Personally, I have a short leash for withholding, and as you've described it, I would be frustrated.

Answer this question for us - what is the purpose of withholding the signed message that the POV character is receiving?

Edited to Add: Depending on the context of the scene, we don't necessarily need to know exactly what was signed. You could have a scene like this.

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Fred had been talking for twenty minutes straight, hardly pausing for breath and leaving Joe & Cha no space to interject. His plan for world domination, the outbreak from his prison island, the revenge he would get on Timmy from third grade for stealing his lunch money... all of it, in a never ending torrent of words.

Out of the corner of his eye, Joe saw Cha move slightly. He looked at his partner for a brief second as Cha made a few quick signs with his left hand. Joe nodded in agreement. This guy was a complete douche.

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quote:

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.."I need to ask you a favor, Jim... as a friend"
"Of course. Anything."
Barry made his request... firmly.
Jim nodded, knowing he was right. "I will."

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I had to bite my tongue, tie myself up in a yogi's meditative stance and ask a nearby transit guard to threaten a good tasering to prevent myself from burning the book on the spot.*

I doubt the mode of communication would have made any difference.

*I may be exaggerating.

This is my personal reaction. I can't say if it's representative of most people.

I do remember Robert Jordan using this withold trick in one book over a number of chapters. Drove me nuts. Just tell me Egwene's freaking plan, what's the earth-shattering plan?!!! It was suspense by boredom and then it was just annoyance.

So the principle I see here is that in an honest story, when the author does not reveal critical things the pov character knows, it can lead some readers to becoming annoyed and then focused on the artifice instead of the art. For me it always pops me out and makes me say, "Oh, come on, cheap!" But I've been annoyed by it before and so am probably more sensitive to it than others.

In fact, I know I am because this technique is used by a number of authors in mysteries and spy thrillers. Used in TV. I just saw it used in an episode of THE MENTALIST. The one character figures out the mystery and makes everyone else wait. In another, they hid what they were doing so I could be stressed, then revealed it was all their plan. Afterwards, it made things feel cheap for me. I'm sure, however, that other people find it just fine.

My question as someone writing a story is whether the payoff is worth the risk. Furthermore, it's so easy to avoid, so why take the risk in the first place?

Some people use this because they think that giving the plan away will cause boredom. You don't want to ouline the plan and then plod through it.

However, the trick to this is easy. The thing that must happen in the next scene is that things DON'T go according to plan. That's what should be happening anyway.

This is classic suspsense structure--from THE GUNS OF NAVARONE to ALIAS to whatever. We get the plan, the character's intent, even if it's only a half-baked plan, BUT plan meets reality which has conflicts and "oh, crap!" surprises waiting.

Maybe the antagonist has thought ahead, something doesn't work exactly as planned, something breaks, one of our guys turns on us, we encounter something we couldn't have foreseen, etc--things go wrong. This is why we love caper movies. Although we know the outline of the plan, it never works just as we thought it would, the clock is ticking, twists are thrown at us, the plan is in a shambles--all this rockets suspense up and we LOVE IT!

I'm not saying the withhold technique can't be used to some effect. It does build curiosity--what's the hero's plan? But I'd trade that teaspoon of curiosity for a big keg of Holy, Hanna, He's Gonna Die! (or get caught, or whatever) suspense any day.

It seems to me that the way to build curiosity for the best effect on the reader is to present REAL secrets or mysteries (from those that characters hold in their past to big Lost-type puzzlers) and then let them build to a release. That's when curiosity can really progress and complicate to a neat release.

With the "what's the plan" type curiosity, I don't think you can do anything with it except sit there and have the reader think, "what's he doing, why's he doing that, what's he doing now?" I don't know how much you can build on that. I mean, think about going to a sports game where you don't know the rules or the goal. Eventually, I think it leads to reader impatience, annoyance, and confusion if prolonged. But more importantly it robs you of a chance to get the suspense kegger!

I consider withholding in order to build false suspense what I call "coyness" on the part of the author. And I completely agree that it's a cheat. When I run into it in a story, I suspect that the author is coping out because he or she can't create suspense in an honest way. And I get every bit as irritated as johnbrown describes being.

When authors get "coy" with the readers in a book I'm reading, I go find another book to read.

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When I encountered this exchange in Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol:

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YES!

The first thing that came to my mind was The Da Vinci Code. Chapters and chapters of Sophie Neveu remembering this horrible-terrible-traumatic event that happened in her childhood but never actually describing it until one of the last chapters (at which point I had completely lost interest in the entire sub-plot).

I have to say Dan Brown's entire style seems to be built around having the characters refuse to give the readers enough information to know what's going on. It can be very frustrating to read. Then again, he's an established writer so I suppose there's an audience for that. I hate it when I feel like I'm being force-fed a hook simply because the story is too weak to stand on it's own legs.

Hiding information from the reader is a very dangerous undertaking; it could reduce a very good story down to soap-opera-style-drama "You see constable, I knew what was happening the whole time because the murderer is actually my twin brother!".

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I have to say Dan Brown's entire style seems to be built around having the characters refuse to give the readers enough information to know what's going on. It can be very frustrating to read.

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If the information your characters share were known to the reader, would it make the next (whatever interval of book-time) more meaningful? Meaningless? I suggest you really think about that before withholding. I keep coming across this in mid-grade (things written for grades 4-8) and it strikes me that the authors must either think the kids aren't very smart, or do it as an artificial way to build tension. There are so many ways to build tension (internal conflict, external conflict, subplots, romantic subplots, zombie subplots, zombie romantic subplots, etc.) I just don't understand why it's done.

So, my suggestion is to avoid it. However, I don't see a problem with NOT literally translating things when one of the characters signs. However, it should be somewhat apparent via the other characters' behaviors and responses what the signing contained.

I think it's an interesting thing, though...a deaf/non-speaking character. Had never thought of including one, but now I'm intrigued about the idea (and have a friend who teaches in a school for the deaf so I have my expert reviewer already in hand!)

In the longer work, I've been using the mute character exactly like Chewy. He signs, people who can read it react, but I don't say exactly what the mute character is signing.

And the section of the story I'm working with, the interval of time between the signing and the reveal is short. I have a mixed company with 3 characters who know each other well and an interloper. THe mute character signs to the POV in order to keep something private from the interloper who is led away by another character so the POV and the mute character can "speak." I'm talking one to two paragraphs. I've just been trying to decide if such a small delay is worth it.

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In the longer work, I've been using the mute character exactly like Chewy. He signs, people who can read it react, but I don't say exactly what the mute character is signing.

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Ah, but in Star Wars Han Solo responded most of the time in a way that told us exactly what Chewy was communicating. And he had to do it that way as a substitute for pov because movies don't do pov well. They also used tone and head movements to communicate Chewy's meaning.

You're talking about not translating anything. Very different.

And that works if the pov character doesn't know sign. Then you can have, what did he say and people laugh and we feel uncomfortable for the character. Or he reads some of the sign and says, he was asking for a drink or pill, I couldn't tell which.

But if the pov character understands it and you show it, actually spend time on it, then you're signaling to the reader that it's important. Now if you were to do this once in a whole novel, no biggie. But if this guy is with the pov character the whole time and you keep having them converse and hiding it then you're going to build a disconnect with many readers because the stage time says "important" but your treating it as if it's unimportant.

Just because he or she signs doesn't change the character dynamic. Let me ask you this. Let's say I had a buddy cop story with Bill and John. We're in Bill's pov the whole time. And throughout the WHOLE story I did this.

John said something.

Bill nodded.

John said something else.

Bill said something.

Wouldn't that get annoying? There's no story. Okay, let's just have one person do it. Then you get this.

John said something.

"No," Bill said.

John replied.

"Only on Tuesdays," said Bill.

John replied.

"I guess," John said.

Not much different. This is what you're doing. Is that the effect you're really going for? Signing, singing, morse code--it doesn't matter. It's a character interaction and communication.

Have you ever read a book where one of the characters speaks in a foreign language and the author NEVER translates?

All it does is turn that part of the story opaque. It fails to communicate anything a reader can react to.

You're wanting to do the same thing. Why?

If you do it over and over and over again all you will do is draw attention to the lack of reader clarity. Some readers will praise you for this avant garde puzzle. But most will just get bored or annoyed and wonder why in the freaking heck the author doesn't just let the man speak!

If you're unwilling to let your signer speak, then it says to me either he has nothing to say that's of any importance and the whole thing should be dropped or you're trying to build curiosity as has been mentioned above. But I think any curiosity you may build will soon be swamped by the negative effects.