-13: The mysterious Stranger

Writing in the first person was my first personal challenge in this book, and the character of the Mysterious Stranger is the second. I’ve never written about such a person before. And I won’t here either, because if I did he wouldn’t be mysterious any more.  This will be a short post.

By definition, “mysterious” refers to something that is “difficult or impossible to understand, explain or identify”, and when in reference to a person, it is someone who is “deliberately enigmatic”. And herein lies the difficulty with mystery. When you want to tease out information in a deliberate fashion, how do you set the pace? How do you ensure that your readers are keep in the dark until exactly the right moment to elicit the greatest surprise, especially when you know what’s going to happen?

A second set of eyes helps a lot. On her first pass through the book, my editor, Kathryn, didn’t know how it was all going to turn out, so she was able to give me a second opinion on the release of clues. Given more time, it would have been useful to have even more readers give their opinions. But one thing is for sure: less is more.

And that’s all you’re going to hear about that.