The Gaps

JB Priestly's essays. Don't have a gun in the room in act one if someone isn't going to use it by act 3.

A reader will quickly expect a love interest where none is intended. A man and a woman with something in common thrown together by circumstances. Oh yes. Love will blooms all right, thinks our reader and will be hurt if nothing comes of it.

A bomb expert character is introduced. There had better be a bomb to diffuse.

The son is violently allergic to bees. Buzz.

The reader fills in the gaps, even if the author didn't intend gaps to be there.

This also leads to the rule to leave some gaps for a reader to fill in. Don't explain everything.

Hilda looked at her watch for the tenth time. Her foot in its red leather boot was tapping a capella on the platform. The annoucer mumbled something incoherent and un-apologetic over the tannoy. The train was late.

Yes. We know. Why should we care?

She took out her mobile. Still no message from Tom. Where was he? She caught a glimpse of her reflection in the ...kidding...