Timing is Everything

Timing is Everything

A common mistake among writers is the location of information. When they add information into the narrative is just as important as what they inform the audience of.

If you want to create a mystery or a question for the audience to ponder, then you want to place visual information — a location, an object or a person (seen but not heard) — in the narration before the audience finds out what or who that is.

If you are simply trying to provide the reader with the details of a scene, the information needs to be delivered in real time. This information isn’t necessary until it is absolutely needed. Unless you want to create the expectation in the audience that a specific location or item will be used later, there’s no need to make the audience aware of it until your characters are aware of it.

Usually, film is subjective. To varying degrees, we experience the story of a film through the eyes of our main character. If someone is going to stab someone with a letter opener they find on a desk, the audience doesn’t need to know that opener is there in advance unless the character already knows it’s there and is planning to use it. Otherwise, we should discover it with the character. It’s not until that character spots it and grabs it that it is relevant to the action.