Don't Waste Your Reveals

One of the best parts of a story is the reveal. It is that shocking moment where you find out that what you have been led to believe has been wrong all along. The truth comes out and you realize that either all those strange discrepancies make perfect sense in this new light, or that this new truth fits just as perfectly as the assumptions we initially had made.

A good reveal can elicit just about any emotion we can feel, and an excellent reveal can make that emotion very intense. But what determines the power or quality of a reveal?

To me, the power of a reveal comes from how strongly you have been building up the emotions of the reader. How much do they like your character? How much is your character feeling? When your character has their heart and soul devoted to something, a big reveal can break their entire world view. Devastating reveals shatter their hope. Uplifting reveals reforge hope. If nobody cares what's going on, then a reveal is just another boring fact.

The quality of a reveal comes down to how big a surprise it is. When the shady guy who joins your team and seems to know everything, but not enough to keep you out of danger, is revealed to be working for the bad guy, it may be a twist, but it was so obvious from the start that nobody was actually surprised by it, so it still produced no emotional reaction (except for contempt - that'd be a common response). Of course, don't try to do the opposite and make the reveal come out of nowhere. There need to be clues; it needs to make sense. It just needs to come out of left field.

When building a reveal, keep these things in mind. You need emotional investment, and you need a true surprise.

Once you have done all those things, don't waste them. If you have successfully pulled the wool over your audience's eyes, don't just immediately go and spill the beans. Let it build up. Drop some hints. Keep them guessing. Do some small reveals which surprise the audience, but make the full reveal an even bigger shocker (the whole "this was crazy before, but it just got insane" thing).