Question

Read the excerpt from Lee Child’s "A Simple Way to Create Suspense".

Like the old cartoon of the big fish eating a smaller fish eating a very small fish, you’ll find out the big answer after a string of smaller drip-drip-drip answers. The big answer is parceled out slowly and parsimoniously.

Which statement by Karin Slaughter shows a similar central idea?

I want it to change them, and I want my reader to feel that change through the character, as if it's them.
There has to be this peeling away of the onion, where you get to the core of the character as the story unfolds.

Answer 1

The second: "There has to be this peeling away of the onion, where you get to the core of the character as the story unfolds."

Reason: both images describe revealing the central truth slowly, layer by layer, as the story progresses. The first quote is about emotional change and reader empathy, not the pacing of revelations.