The moment they figure it out

TV writer and novelist Tightropegirl discusses Hitchcock’s old distinction between surprise and suspense. A bomb goes off out of the blue: Surprise! We see the bomb hidden on the bus: Suspense! Or, as TG puts it, the storyline can be open—we know what’s going on—or closed. We know things before the protagonist or we’re at the same page (or in the case of House, which TG works for, often behind)
It’s a cliché of writing-magazine articles that suspense is always better, but it isn’t necessarily. Hitchcock knew that perfectly well, as witness the shocking initial murder in Man Who Knew Too Much. But TG’s point is that whichever approach you take, there’s always a moment the protagonist figures things out (she uses some spoilery examples from the current Dr. Who season, so I didn’t read further).
This is potentially a very dramatic moment. It can also be a very tricky one. You’ve got to have something that clues the protagonist in and steers him in the right direction, and it has to be reasonably plausible she didn’t pick up on it before. This applies whether the revelation is “Dr. Franklin is murdering the board members!” or “Oh my god, Fred’s just marrying Helen for money, I’ve got to stop the wedding!”
In No Good Deed Goes Unpunished, for instance, I had a very hard time figuring out the clue that steers Al Soares to the killer. One reason is that he’s wrong about what’s happening: It isn’t until the next to last scene that he pieces things together. I wanted it “closed”—the reader should be surprised too—so I had to have a clue that wouldn’t be obvious to everyone else, and would still make him show up where I need him (I think I’ve got it licked).
In Brain From Outer Space, there’s some stuff the readers will know well before Steve and Gwen, for example who’s behind the plot against them. They also learn in the prologue that Alan Ross is up to something suspicious. As to the villain’s agenda or whether it’s the Vanguard or the American Order that are the bad guys, I’ll hopefully keep them in the dark.
While reading the parts of TG’s article that didn’t give spoilers, I also started to think about ways in which you can open up a plot to the readers (or viewers):
•A scene from the villain’s point of view.
•A terrorist threat if you know that you can take it seriously.
•POV of a character who learns what the bad guys’ plot is, then dies.
•The hero learns what’s going on, then is made to forget it. The Fu Manchu books use this a lot, mind control being among the Devil Doctor’s many talents.
•We let readers make genre assumptions. Readers will usually assume that in a horror movie, stopping at isolated mansions or castles is a bad idea, and so is walking by a cliff with the nephew you’ve just announced you intend to disinherit.
The moment they figure it out can be scary (OMG, you mean that’s what’s going on?) but it can also be catharctic (now they know! There’s a chance!). Either way it’s important to make it work.