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Something that I find uncomfortable which comes up from time to time, especially in first-person stories:
In order to create suspense for the reader, something significant is kept secret from the main character, even though doing so has the potential to stress her out or even panic her unnecessarily.
I'm not talking about situations where the secret or comedy-of-errors or practical-joke-gone-wrong is what triggers the plot. If that's what it takes to make the story work, it's most likely not an option to do otherwise.
What I'm thinking of are times when a character is put through something of a crisis for no apparent story-related reason. The incident that triggered this, FWIW, is the current chapter of Megan's excellent Sarah Carrera series, where it turns out that the stage fright that the title character went through before her first concert might have been eased if her best friend had been present backstage, but Sarah had been told that the friend had been forced to stay home.
Did it ramp up the suspense? Sure. Can one argue that making our heroine do this without her friend's backstage help and encouragement will make her more confident and self-reliant in the future? Perhaps, I suppose, if one wants to stretch the point. But it just doesn't seem to be the logical time or place to do this, with so much at stake for her, and that makes it hard for me to believe that someone -- in this case, her father, who's also her agent -- would make that decision just to preserve a pleasant surprise for her once she's back offstage later. (Granted, her father hasn't made the best decisions in the past, so it's not necessarily out of character for him. But nobody in the story even thinks about this.)
Anyway, this isn't a unique case; I've seen it happen in several stories here. In one series, posted a few years ago, mentors who were clearly intended to be sympathetic characters seemed to be constantly spoofing a heroine whose mental health was already in question. Eventually I couldn't take it any more -- it seemed sadistic and pointless -- and it was probably the main reason I stopped reading that story.
The moral, I guess, is that if an author feels the need to create suspense that way, she ought to make sure there's some story-related reason for it, rather than simply a plot convenience. And if it's a flawed (or villainous) decision by one of the characters, the point should be addressed when the secret is exposed.
My two cents, anyway.
Eric
Taking Wing
The technique you find puzzling is something I used to use often when I was a company commander and I had a new officer. At some point I knew the lad would be sent out on a mission or task on his own without the crutch of having "The Old Man" there to fall back on if he screwed the pooch. So during training exercises or during patrols along the German Border east of Fulda I would place the young buck in progressively more demanding and difficult situations, allowing him to think he was on his own even though I always was somewhere near at hand, ready to intervene if needed. If he did well, the young officer walked away with the confidence he would need to do so again.
As a parent I did the same thing with my children. Most children going into a new and frightening situation cast about, seeking for a crutch of some sort to lean on, to help them get through. The sooner they are able to stand on their own two feet, the better. I believe confidence in themselves is the most precious gift a parent can give their children. Otherwise, they become so dependent on others that they are unable to function on their own or take the chances we all need to take from time to time in the real world.
Sarah's father knows her friends will not always be there, at every performance to serve as a crutch. So the sooner Sarah learns she does not need her 'Lucky Charm' or crutch, the better off she is. It is called growing up.
I know, this will probably come across as cruel and unreasonable to many folks here. Be that as it may, I applaud Sarah's father. He's actually acting like a father and not a friend.
Okay, let the pounding begin.
Nancy Cole
"You may be what you resolve to be."
T.J. Jackson
Without conflict...
...stories become bland and uninteresting.
It's important to remember this is NOT real life. How many times when you're watching a film does the heroine do something absolutely stupid - "No, don't go into the forest when you know there's a killer on the loose!" - but go into the forest they do. Why? To create conflict. People aren't perfectly logical so plots certainly don't have to be, only good enough.
Rarely in real life do you get an incident by incident explanation of events, so why should you in a story? Often, explaining everything that's happened, rather than leaving it to the reader's imagination, makes the ending prolonged and boring. The author wants the reader to feel on a high, not bored to death.
Finally, there is no right answer to this question. If a story is read by hundreds of readers, some will feel as you do - others completely the opposite. It's a question of balance. Getting it right for everyone is an impossible challenge. An author simply has to do what feels right for them.
Flawed characters
Let's face it, character behave illogically in much the same way as people in real life behave illogically. As far as Megan was concerned, dad hadn't been able to get tickets for Emily and Ethan - after all, she was a fairly last-minute stand-in because the original support act weren't able to make it - so therefore there was a limited supply of tickets available. Megan's dad probably had to do some very last minute haggling to get the places for E&E. Besides which, being her very first performance in front of an audience ever, it may have been a sound decision not to let her know her best friends had been invited until after, to help her focus etc.
And withholding information from main characters is a common device - would "You've Got It All Wrong" be such a riveting read if all the characters were completely open and honest with each other, all the time? Thought not...
Besides which, characters who seem too good to be true have to be handled very carefully, otherwise they're in grave danger of slipping into Mary Sue territory.
EAFOAB Episode Summaries
As the right side of the brain controls the left side of the body, then only left-handers are in their right mind!
False Conflict
I'm not familiar with the Sarah Carrera series, but I know what you're talking about, and I agree. There are a number of ways to create tension, but the best way is to have real opposing forces, where decisions by the main characters matter. Generally speaking, it does not satisfy the reader to be kept unnecessarily in the dark, seeing obvious, easy solutions to solve problems, or witnessing the main conflict being conveniently handled by side characters or by heretofore unknown forces.
Bottom line: if one is writing for herself, anything goes, but if one is writing for the reader, if the reader feels manipulated in the end, it's not the reader's fault for feeling that way.
"Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony."
Mahatma Gandhi
"Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony."
Mahatma Gandhi