Refer back to this article any time you want to indulge the reader with some pleasurable anticipation, or delay a revelation in order to increase suspense.
☞ Our paradigm for this article will be Jane Eyre, so expect spoilers.
01 | Instruct the Reader
I had at heart a strange and anxious thought. Something had happened which I could not comprehend; no one knew of or had seen the event but myself: it had taken place the preceding night. Mr. Rochester that night was absent from home; nor was he yet returned: business had called him to a small estate of two or three farms he possessed thirty miles off—business it was requisite he should settle in person, previous to his meditated departure from England. I waited now his return; eager to disburthen my mind, and to seek of him the solution of the enigma that perplexed me. Stay till he comes, reader; and, when I disclose my secret to him, you shall share the confidence.
The intervention of the narrative voice is a straightforward and brilliant device to postpone the description of Bertha Rochester’s spectral appearance. Not only does it increase curiosity, it also accomplishes the important task of aligning the reader as a considerate confidante. Since these delay tactics are often quite transparent, it’s important for the reader to be sufficiently invested in the story and the characters to tolerate (or even appreciate) this purposeful narrative meandering.
02 | Prolong Doubt
“Your master himself may be beyond the British Channel, for aught you know: and then, if he is at Thornfield Hall, towards which you hasten, who besides him is there? His lunatic wife: and you have nothing to do with him: you dare not speak to him or seek his presence. You have lost your labour—you had better go no farther,” urged the monitor. “Ask information of the people at the inn; they can give you all you seek: they can solve your doubts at once. Go up to that man, and inquire if Mr. Rochester be at home.”
The suggestion was sensible, and yet I could not force myself to act on it. I so dreaded a reply that would crush me with despair. To prolong doubt was to prolong hope.
Delaying a revelation often requires the character to act illogically, or in roundabout ways. When that’s the case, you can emphasise the character’s awareness of their inconsistent behaviour and explain it away as a consequence of fear or hope.
03 | Approach by Degrees
The crows sailing overhead perhaps watched me while I took this survey. I wonder what they thought. They must have considered I was very careful and timid at first, and that gradually I grew very bold and reckless. A peep, and then a long stare; and then a departure from my niche and a straying out into the meadow; and a sudden stop full in front of the great mansion, and a protracted, hardy gaze towards it.
Jane’s return to Thornfield Hall is described stage by stage, and interspersed with Jane’s imagined visions of the house and its master. We’ve seen how a similar technique can be useful for describing the Call to Adventure, and shared memories of a first meeting can be an effective way of mollifying the reader who may otherwise grow tired of the slow but steady approach.
If you’re looking to use this technique, consider how the journey to the location can be divided into stages, and what vantage point can offer the best opportunities for withholding information until the moment of revelation.
04 | Imaginary Interlude
Hear an illustration, reader.
A lover finds his mistress asleep on a mossy bank; he wishes to catch a glimpse of her fair face without waking her. He steals softly over the grass, careful to make no sound; he pauses—fancying she has stirred: he withdraws: not for worlds would he be seen. All is still: he again advances: he bends above her; a light veil rests on her features: he lifts it, bends lower; now his eyes anticipate the vision of beauty—warm, and blooming, and lovely, in rest. How hurried was their first glance! But how they fix! How he starts! How he suddenly and vehemently clasps in both arms the form he dared not, a moment since, touch with his finger! How he calls aloud a name, and drops his burden, and gazes on it wildly! He thus grasps and cries, and gazes, because he no longer fears to waken by any sound he can utter—by any movement he can make. He thought his love slept sweetly: he finds she is stone dead.
I looked with timorous joy towards a stately house: I saw a blackened ruin.
Really, Brontë draws out Jane’s return to Thornfield to the point that readers probably wouldn’t have tolerated in a lesser work. Following the long description of the approach, this paragraph of an imaginary scene is a strange aside that causes the reader to pause and consider. The mossy bank seems designed to erase the facade of Thornfield Hall from the mind’s eye, in order to replace it with the sudden and violent image of the “blackened ruin”.
If you use this technique, I recommend reserving it for a moment that requires visual impact.
05 | Misdirection
“I was the late Mr. Rochester’s butler,” he added.
The late! I seem to have received, with full force, the blow I had been trying to evade.
“The late!” I gasped. “Is he dead?”
“I mean the present gentleman, Mr. Edward’s father,” he explained. I breathed again: my blood resumed its flow. Fully assured by these words that Mr. Edward—my Mr. Rochester (God bless him, wherever he was!)—was at least alive: was, in short, “the present gentleman.”
Another way that Brontë misdirects the reader in order to delay Jane and Rochester’s reunion, is through Jane’s conversation with the innkeeper. This misunderstanding at the beginning of their exchange is particularly effective; it briefly surfaces Jane’s worst fear, while at the same time explaining the reason for the innkeeper’s knowledge of Thornfield. The repeated phrase, “the present gentleman”, is also clever in the way it develops the theme of Rochester’s presence vs. his absence.
Look for ways your character might reveal their deepest fears or insecurities regarding the delayed revelation, through a misunderstood word or phrase.
06 | Slow the Herald
I feared now to hear my own story. I endeavoured to recall him to the main fact.
“And this lady?”
“This lady, ma’am,” he answered, “turned out to be Mr. Rochester’s wife! The discovery was brought about in the strangest way. There was a young lady, a governess at the Hall, that Mr. Rochester fell in —”
“But the fire,” I suggested.
“I’m coming to that, ma’am—that Mr. Edward fell in love with. The servants say they never saw anybody so much in love as he was: he was after her continually. They used to watch him—servants will, you know, ma’am—and he set store on her past everything: for all, nobody but him thought her so very handsome. She was a little small thing, they say, almost like a child. I never saw her myself; but I’ve heard Leah, the house-maid, tell of her. Leah liked her well enough. Mr. Rochester was about forty, and this governess not twenty; and you see, when gentlemen of his age fall in love with girls, they are often like as if they were bewitched. Well, he would marry her.”
Not only is the innkeeper obdurately loquacious, but he’s bent on repeating the story that both the reader and Jane know all too well, and are hardly eager to hear again. While this may not be the most engaging technique to delay information, it can be useful for summarising long periods of time, and for providing an alternative point of view for past events in the story.
☞ In previous articles you can also find examples for creating a “relay delay” or using comic relief characters to delay revelations.
