Character A learns about topic B in scene C, but can't discuss topic D because it isn't introduced until scene E. Sound familiar? If your suspense novel writing process has started to feel like algebra homework, you've got some work to do.

This kind of elaborate plotting reveals something important: you've done a lot of planning about what's going to be included in your novel. You have an entire world and a whole system of plot points and ideas that you don't have on paper yet, and you're struggling to get them on paper because you've realized there's this pesky thing called the timing of information in a novel.

Here's the uncomfortable truth most plot structure tips won't tell you: when you have elaborate information systems that require equations to track, you can probably simplify.

The "Audience Already Knows That" Problem

An observation about how information is revealed in scripts and screenplays that applies equally well to novels: you can't have someone learn about something in one scene and then have that person reiterate that thing in a separate scene just because you need another character to learn about it.

Think about it this way: if one character discovers crucial information, then comes home and tells their partner about that same information, the audience would be receiving that information twice. And that's uninteresting.

So what needs to happen? One scene needs to be about the information itself. The second scene needs to be about the conflict that emerges from that information when it’s introduced to a third party—not a retelling of what we already know.

This matters especially in suspense novels or the suspense genre in general. Writers should find ways of always introducing new information, new Easter eggs, new ways of thinking about something, particularly when dealing with the same incident, like a murder.

Flatten It Into Present Tense

One solution to the information-timing puzzle: back-revise so that all the characters who need to find out about something are present at the time when it occurs.

Writers so often run into issues of "well, this character has to tell a story and that's boring" or "this character has to relay the information, which is boring." The more interesting approach is simply having no one tell anybody anything—things just happen in the present tense in the book at all times.

Suspend disbelief. Slacken logic a little bit and just allow things to happen in the present tense because it's more interesting to see things happening and then watch their consequences, versus having to flash back and do all these pretzel contortions with time or with who's telling who what.

Flattening things into the present tense is often the way to deal with very elaborate plotting. Better story pacing usually comes from simplification, not from adding another subplot to explain the first one.

The Bottom Line

If your manuscript has started requiring spreadsheets, timelines, and algebraic notation just to track who knows what and when—that's not a sign you need better organizational tools. It's a sign your story might be asking you to simplify.

At Hewes House, book coaching and developmental editing help writers untangle exactly these kinds of structural knots. Sometimes the answer isn't solving the equation—it's writing a simpler one.