In which I am really hoping the ice stops...

I'm having a few epiphanies about characters, who they are and where they are going.  I need to weave in some bits about my narrator's past, and what made him the way that he is.  The chain of events in this novel is pretty intricate, so I need to be sure I'm letting go of info at the right time, so I'm not spoiling any surprises to come.  But i need to give enough so that readers aren't overly confused.  They should be confused enough to be curious, but no more.  Nothing ticks me off more than an author who is trying too hard to be tricky and instead of making me want to read on, I end up throwing the book against the wall.  Intentional trickiness, or treating readers like idiots, has never been something I've been tolerant of.  Yes, your plot should be deep and involved and everything should happen intentionally, but the reader should NOT feel like he's purposely left in the dark.  The point of the author is to make all these things happen while being invisible.

Take Da Vinci Code, for example.  The entire book screamed of DEVICE!  The length of the chapters, the whole structure of the novel, was designed to make readers turn pages.  The book really isn't that much different from any other adventure novel.  The plot is straightforward, not unique.  But he knew when to stop the chapters, and how to get readers to turn pages, and he chose a great topic to write about that sparked a ton of interest.  The thing was though, the book was so OBVIOUSLY designed to get readers to turn pages that it pissed me off after a while.  Maybe it was because I'm a writer and know all those tricks too, but it seemed very transparent to me. 

If I do that, you have permission to smack me one.  The author's job is to make a story.  If he wants to call attention to himself or his devices, perhaps he should find a job on the stage.

I think I need to move my desk again.  Downstairs, this time.  Something my other half is just NOT going to want to hear.  Something tells me that the idea of the desk being in the living room is not going to lend itself to great reception...