There is an old adage in storytelling that “show, don’t tell” is always important. There’s a lot of ways to interpret this saying and most of the time those interpretations are correct. The concept of showing the ideas and concepts in a story are usually always more impactful than simply stating it outright and explaining it in depth. That being said, there’s a difficulty that comes with trying to create something mysterious that inspires wonder and curiosity in the reader. But creating such a feeling is easier said than done.
When it comes to creating a feeling of wonder and mystery for the reader, I find it depends how important the thing in question is to the central plot of the story. In a series it’s a bit easier to make things vague and mysterious as it can be explained in a later addition to the series, especially if it’s important to the overall story of the series. But if it’s involved and important to the main aspect of the central story of the book that has a conclusion, it has to have some kind of resolution and explanation. In the traditional plotline, the set up in the rising action and the fallout in the falling action is where this feeling of mystery is created and then explained to justify the climax and the story as a whole. Without that, there’s the risk of creating plot holes that can ruin the story altogether.
If the central plot to the story needs to be defined and explained, where then can the mystery and wonder be added to the story? As the title of the article gives away, the worldbuilding is the best place to add an air of mystery to the story in a way that’s fun and interesting without being damaging to the overall story. Everything surrounding the main story, the explanations and the set-up, is free to play around with that allows for the writer to create some curiosity and wonder for the reader to experience. One of my favorite examples is the concept of long lost ancient civilizations that leave behind traces of their existence that make you wonder “who were they? Where did they go and what happened?” Often this type of mystery works in visual media as written media often requires a justification for it being included.
Typically when there’s magic and/or advanced technology included in the story, there’s a degree of explanation required to justify it’s existence and how it’s used. The struggle for writers is often how much explanation is needed to have it make sense in the story. In reality, when it comes to magic and technology, there’s a limit to how well you can explain how it’s used. In science fiction, for instance, you can go into extreme detail about how something works but often that ends up taking up too much time in the story that you risk boring the reader. There is a certain point where, as the writer, a bit of faith must be given to the reader to hope they can put together why something works the way it does. That being said, it has to get to a point where the remainder of the explanation is self-explanatory or simple enough that one can assume what happens next. However, this is where a bit mystery comes into play.
It’s a very dangerous thing, however, to use mystery to justify certain aspects of magic and technology in a story. The suspension of disbelief is key to creating a story that flows well and satisfies the reader, but it’s a very fragile thing. If something defies what someone would know as common sense, there often needs to be an explanation for it. For instance, if the people in a story have the ability to float, there needs to be some kind of reason given. The thing is, it can just be a very simple reason like psychic powers or magic and then given a light explanation of how it works. But for some things, like ancient technology left behind by an long lost civilization, the writer can actually leave it up to mystery as it creates questions that are more interesting than an explanation could ever give. Some questions could be like “how did the ancients create such technology? If there were capable of such things, how did they end up going extinct? What happened to them?” It allows for potential set up for future stories, in either sequels or prequels, that the writer can take advantage of if they so wish. They can also leave it up to the reader to forever wonder about these things and come up with their own theories which is pretty fun in all honesty.
Adding mystery in worldbuilding is difficult to be honest. There’s a limit to how far a writer can push things without breaking the ever important suspension of disbelief. However this can work to create amazing worlds for stories to take place in when done carefully and with honest intentions to build mystery and not out of laziness.
– Raphael
Raph's Cozy Musings 