chocobutt-trash:

higharollakockamamie:

One of my favorite examples of putting in a clue to a mystery and then using a trick to make you ignore it was in a Discworld book I love it because the trick was making it a joke. 

Naturally now I can’t remember which book it was, but the gist is Vimes is going around throwing an orange at people to see what they do. One butler guy just watches it hit him and looks (paraphrasing from memory) “bemused at the upper class’s habit of flinging fruit.” Later Vimes reveals that’s what tipped him off that the guy was an assassin. Instead of catching it or flinching, he saw it wasn’t a threat and let it go. 

See, a reader knows the old conservation of detail rule.Things can only be so invisible. If a writer is going to mention something, it has to serve a purpose. So a joke is the perfect place to hide a clue; I clearly remember reading that line and then not thinking about it anymore, because obviously that detail was just there to be funny. 

This is an excellent point for writers to take note of. It plays with reader expectations in a satisfying way, because while it hides a clue in plain sight, it entertains instead of patronising the reader.

And now I need to go re-read all the Night Watch books.

Another excellent example is in Maggie Stiefvater’s book The Raven Boys. Someone remarks that a character’s hands are really cold, and he deadpans, “I’ve been dead for seven years,” as his first spoken line of dialogue.

Later, we find out he’s a ghost, who has been dead for- you guessed it- seven years.