I was just working on a chapter for a story where the character doesn't fully understand new abilities they've gotten ("Would You Rather", if anyone's curious), and I wondered how people feel about that moment in a story when the main character settles down from the action for a bit to figure out how their powers work. The way I see it, there's a few ways to handle this sort of thing. 1) You can gloss over it with something like "I experimented for a while and now I think I know how this works", then either give the reader a straightforward explanation or leave it up to surprise and the story to show them later on. This has the advantage of being speedy and concise, and (if you want) can make how things are supposed to operate very clear, which is occasionally helpful in a format where other people are allowed to add on their own contributions. It doesn't feel like very interesting storytelling, though. 2) You can fully narrate how your character explores their powers. You probably don't want to run down an entire exhaustive scientific-method-style testing period, because that's almost certainly gonna be boring, but a few tests along the lines of trying out scenarios can be interesting if you play them out right, and manages to give your readers some content while still letting your character figure out what the heck they're doing. The trouble here is that it doesn't have fast pacing, almost by definition. It can slow down the action, sometimes to the point where your readers might want to skip to the next bit. 3) Just don't do it - make your character so pressed for time, impatient, or dumb that they never bother learning how to control whatever it is they can do. Me, I find that option bothersome, but I think that's mostly just because of how antithetical it is to my way of thinking rather than any decent criteria of authorship. How about you folks? Do you like to see these scenes? Is this kind of thing worth it, or does it kill the momentum and energy, especially in a sexy-type story like we tend to write here? Other thoughts?
Explaining the character's limitations and abilities is important, because the conflict of the story should hang on what they can and cannot do. That being said, it helps if the scene can be made organic to the story, not too much of a digression. Ideally, the plot doesn't grind to a halt so that you can experiment with your abilities, but the experimentation is part of the story - or leads to the next important development in the plot.
You can use a character's exploration or ignorance of their newfound powers to drive the story. For instance, while testing the constraints of his hypnotic amulet, someone might discover that if a command is too displaced from a person's convictions, the hypnosis breaks... but he realises this while experimenting on the most religious girl he knows. He tells her to do something sexual with him, and this breaks the hypnosis. It helps him learn about how far he can take the mind control, but it also means she finds herself naked and in front of him, which lands him in deep trouble, thus moving the story into the next conflict. Or perhaps he discovers that commands from the amulet are taken literally, which makes quite a scene when he tells a rude coworker to go fuck himself in the middle of the office.
I don't see a reason why the user of the power would try out every detail of the power before actually using it. That's like training for a sport and not playing a single game before you're perfect. So in my opinion, a conclusive explanation like in 1) usually doesn't make much sense. (Though it is certainly a popular approach for many authors.) I would prefer try-and-error style experimentation, so a mixture between 2) and 3), basically what has been suggested before. How much you lean either way might say something about the depicted character. From a collaboration perspective, I would explain the power in detail in the writers' guidelines, a separate chapter, or after consultation.
