I’d like to include in a story “mysteries” and deceptions that (ideally) should be obvious in hindsight (By obvious, I mean "elephant in the room" kind of obvious).
How to give to the reader every element they need to unravel a mystery, while keeping them from resolving it?
How to hide something in plain sight?
I’m looking (preferably) for methods to keep the reader from seeing what is right in front of them.
Example (in a story with magic and stuff):
The Main Character meets early in the story auntie A, who appears to be an old man wearing women clothes. Since other characters have known auntie A for years and don’t seem to find it weird or unusual, the MC doesn’t comment on it. She regularly goes to Auntie A for advices and guidance afterwards.
During the course of the story, MC discover that she is immune to some specific types of magic (including illusions and mental manipulation), and learns why they don’t affect her. Also, a couple of characters who know auntie A show signs of bigotry towards sexual minorities.
While investigating the disappearance of one of her relatives, MC finds the months old corpse of a woman. At first she assumes that the deceased is the person she was looking for. She realises later that it’s the corpse of the real Auntie A, and that the man she met actually stole her indentity, used a spell to make himself look like her and lives in her home, wearing her clothes to increase the spell’s effectiveness.
I’m afraid that since the readers will have every element they need to realise the deception, the reveal won’t have any impact. Moreover, my only readers for now are close friends and I already talked with them about this idea, so I won’t know if it works when I’ll show them the first complete draft.
Answer
I see others missing the problem the clue is an elephant in the room. They hint on hiding various subtle clues. The problem is this is not a subtle clue.
Missing this clue would totally break suspension of disbelief. It's far too obvious. It must be hidden in the plain sight.
What you need here is misdirection. Unintentional, accidental event that changes the perception of the clue by the reader.
In this case, I'd play on the character's bigotry towards sexual minorities, by making the genuine appear a mockery. In particular, pick a person who's known Auntie A for years, and have them poke fun at Auntie's bigotry. The genuine Auntie's offense will appear utterly ridiculous when spoken by a cross-dressing man. The situation where the joker pokes fun at a straight-face will be easily misinterpreted as humorous blather between two jokers. The fact others don't see Auntie for who she is really, will be easily taken for this being a quirk of the relationship, where the crossdressing fact is so accepted that rude jokes between friends about it are taken well and enjoyed by all.
The difficulty is in writing a single dialogue that has two meanings. One is a genuine exchange between a cosmopolitan and a bigot (who are still friends despite their differences). The other is a parody of the above, where all the genuine ripostes are taken as tongue-in-cheek mockeries, the situational humor contributing to their appearances.
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