Ambiguity in Fiction: How Much is Too Much?

Ambiguity invites readers to draw their own conclusions by purposefully allowing space for the readers to interpret. This is sometimes mixed up with confusion, but a seasoned writer will deploy ambiguity strategically in a way that heightens the overall experience for the reader. Adding a dose of ambiguity does not signal lazy or unskilled writing, on the contrary it’s an impactful technique if you know when and how to use it.

Common Misconceptions About Ambiguity

It’s important to understand that ambiguity is not the same as confusing the reader or synonymous with mystery. Rather, ambiguity serves as a way to give the reader more free rein in interpreting story elements. And while a mystery wraps up neatly at the end most of the time, ambiguous narratives may leave loose ends by design.

Why Writers Use Ambiguity

You’re probably wondering why an author would choose ambiguity at all. Isn’t the goal to keep readers turning pages and riveted? Well, yes. But by leaving room for interpretation, a writer can give the reader more agency. Readers get to decide for themselves if the character acted out of malice or was just feeling lazy, and that grey area injects depth into the story. This is the kind of depth that keeps readers coming back; they want to catch any angles they missed or misinterpreted the first time around. 

Ambiguity is also a unique way to convey trust between the author and the reader. The author demonstrates they trust the reader to have the ability to piece nuanced fragments together and weave their own meaning out of them. 

When we think about it, our own life stories are not straightforward and linear either. Maybe that’s what draws us to ambiguous storytelling. It’s relatable. We’ve been there. We are there.

Common Types of Ambiguity in Fiction

There are multiple types of ambiguity fiction writers can use:

• Narrative Ambiguity: Give your story an unreliable narrator. The readers won’t know who to trust and be on their toes the whole story though. Deliberately leave details out to keep your audience guessing or fiddle with the timeline to obscure reality.

• Character Ambiguity: Characters can be crafted to depict them as hard to define. For example, you could be vague about what motivates a character to act the way that they do. Or you could show a character acting in ways that contradict and make readers wonder what is really going on inside their head.

• Structural Ambiguity: There are many ways in which writers can shake things up with structure. We have all read stories that don’t resolve the conflict. Writers can also leave the ending wide open, allowing readers to choose their own adventure, so to say. They can also switch up different forms, such as shifting from epistolary (letters) to exposition or vignettes.

• Linguistic Ambiguity: Authors can use literary devices like symbols and metaphor to create ambiguity with language. Think of how authors might foreshadow a death or bad omen with something dark or unlucky at the beginning of the story. There’s also plenty of opportunity to use words that can have multiple meanings so readers don’t immediately know which one is meant in the situation.

The Key Do's and Don'ts of Ambiguity

Do

When crafting with ambiguity you will want to be selective in the things you choose to exclude. As writers, we sometimes choose to leave details out so that we can show readers rather than tell them. Be mindful of the breadcrumbs you are scattering for your readers to follow so that you avoid haphazard omission or plot holes. 

You want to avoid being ambiguous for the sake of it and falling into the trap of not providing enough grounding for your narrative. When you don’t give your audience enough of a backdrop to establish the premise, you run the risk of losing readers or leaving them frustrated. An undeveloped storyline is not ambiguous, just unsuccessful. Don’t confuse the two.

Don't

There are times when ambiguity just doesn’t fit. When you are writing in a specific genre, like mystery or horror, for example, you don’t want to be so vague that the narrative underdelivers on the hallmarks of that genre. Choose wisely when to leave things open-ended and when to show your reader where things are headed. 

Another pitfall to avoid is repeating a motif that leads the reader to associate its significance with a specific meaning and then failing to confirm it. This destroys the trust you are, ideally, aiming to build with your reader. Instead of trusting their emotional intelligence, you are leading them on a fool’s errand. Think about the green light in The Great Gatsby. Fitzgerald didn’t repeat it throughout the narrative with no goal in mind; he wanted you to associate it with dreams that were out of reach. 

Examples of Ambiguity in Fiction

• The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald leaves room for readers to connect the dots with characters acting in morally grey ways and by employing Nick Carraway as an unreliable narrator. Nick idealizes Gatsby at first, then finds himself disillusioned with him for his criminal activities. Gatsby’s obsession with, and continued pursuit of, Daisy is morally troublesome as well. Fitzgerald paints an elaborate scene, with eloquent narrative details and just enough space for the audience to interpret their own explanations.

• The Secret History by Donna Tartt is heavy on the morally gray. She creates a world where a group of students follow a classics professor into totally new-to-them territory. The book starts out with a murder of a fellow student. The narrator confesses to the murder, and much of the plot revolves around him telling the reader exactly what he did. But can his narration be trusted? Read it to see what you think really happened in this tiny Vermont town. 

• Bunny by Mona Awad depicts a student at a prestigious New England MFA program. Awad parodies girl cliques in this experimental piece of BookTok fame. Readers have mixed reactions to the ending. Read it for yourself and report back; we’d love to know whether the ambiguity worked for you or didn’t land. 

• J.D. Salinger is the king of ambiguity. Read literally any of his short stories, and you’ll understand the concept by then end (and maybe be a little frustrated). If you don’t know where to start, try “A Perfect Day for Bananafish.” This story was my introduction to Salinger, and it had my classmates and professor arguing for over an hour about its meaning.

Ideas for Testing Ambiguous Waters

If you are looking to mix things up in your writing practice, here are a few things you can try in order to leave some room for the reader to fill in the gaps. 

• Revisit one of your short stories with a tidy ending and rewrite it to allow for multiple interpretations. 

• Excise a paragraph of expository writing and put either an image or action into its place. 

• Craft a scene where two different understandings are plausibly correct.

The Bottom Line

Now you know that there are a multitude of ways to put ambiguity to work in your next fiction piece. However you decide to do it, make sure you incorporate it thoughtfully and with respect extended to the reader. Think of it as a way to experiment in your practice while inviting the reader along to try new things and new ways of thinking. 

We want to read your short story with whatever dose of ambiguity you sprinkle into it. Polish your fiction piece and submit it to Ink & Oak for your chance to be featured in our next issue. We look forward to getting lost in your words.