I like not knowing things.
This is useful, because there are a great many things I do not know.
Some of them are important.
Others involve the correct way to fold a fitted sheet.
I have accepted that certain questions may remain unanswered.
In stories, however, not knowing is complicated.
There is a difference between mystery and confusion.
Mystery makes us lean closer.
Confusion makes us look back three pages and wonder whether we missed a paragraph.
I have done both.
The difference is rarely the amount of information we are given.
A mystery can survive on almost nothing.
A name.
A photograph.
A car that was there a moment ago and is no longer there.
The reader does not need an explanation.
Not yet.
But they need to understand the question.
Confusion is different.
Confusion occurs when the reader is forced to ask questions the story did not intend.
Who is speaking?
Where are we?
Why is this person suddenly carrying a suitcase?
Was there always a dog?
These are not mysteries.
The dog is not a metaphor.
The writer has simply lost control of the room.
This is an uncomfortable distinction because writers enjoy withholding information.
It feels sophisticated.
Sometimes it is.
Sometimes we are standing behind a curtain congratulating ourselves while the reader has already left the building.
I think mystery requires trust.
The reader agrees to continue without an answer because they believe the story knows something they do not.
That is a quiet agreement.
And a fragile one.
Break it too often and every unanswered question begins to look like an accident.
Perhaps this is why I have become interested in the questions themselves.
Before hiding an answer, I want to know whether the reader can see the question clearly.
A closed door is interesting.
A building with no visible entrance is mostly inconvenient.
There are exceptions.
There are always exceptions.
Someone will now write an excellent novel about a building with no entrance simply to prove me wrong.
I hope they do.
But for my own work, I try to remember something simple.
The reader does not need to know where the road leads.
They should know which road they are standing on.
After that, we can turn off the lights.
— D. Vaen