MC secrets

Sounds like you're talking about unreliable narrator. I've not written anything using that literary device before, but Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz is an excellent example that comes right to mind.

Not mention it because it doesn't matter at that moment, or not give the story enough time to allow for it to be fully explained once it's mentioned--all without making it feel like I'm waving the sekret before the reader's face and saying, "Nanananana, you can't have it!"

I like to think of it as backstory. The reader doesn't need to know everything about the character's life from the get go--just like their info. Certainly you can avoid details because they just don't matter to the story, and you can skim things lightly for the reader to get an idea--before there needs to be more explanation put forth.

For example, I have a character with a deep, secretive past. He adopted his name--one big plot point for the end--he's a bastard prince, sacrificed his own power, and many other things. But I don't mention any of that for the first half of the book, because I don't need to. All that he goes through doesn't touch on this, but is apart of it. Later, his past is revealed slowly through other POVs, but when I return to his the past doesn't come up--which would mean I would have to explain things--because those parts of his past doesn't matter to his situation.

But all of this depends on the type of narration you're doing. I focus on a very clear, truthful narrative. A unreliable narrator, or more distant narrative, or anything else would differ--and I suggest if you're going to experiment, get a ton of beta-readers.

Hmm, well, in the WIP it comes out on page 364 of 536. There's been foreshadowing but I'm not expecting the reader to expect it, if that makes sense. This is in first-person POV.

I think it's fairly easy. Your character simply doesn't think about it, or at least doesn't think about it "on camera." Or he thinks about it in slivers or ambiguously. Maybe the character is so used to keeping the secret that he does it naturally. Maybe he can't face thinking about it. Maybe he's so used to thinking about it he doesn't need to go over any of the 'big picture' anymore. My first-person MC keeps secrets from a combination of all three.

If you're trying to keep a secret from the reader, you need to consider how 'fair' the revelation will feel. If keeping the reader from finding out ahead of time means that details that logically should've appeared because you're using am omniscient 3rd person narration, simply did not, then it's probably going to feel like a cheat. Likewise, a 1st person POV where unveiling the secret leaves the reader saying, 'I've spent 2/3 of the book in this character's head, it just doesn't make sense that this secret was never even internally mentioned during this, that, and that specific event.'

What kind of point of view are you using? How deep into the character's thoughts should the reader be?


Is the narrator intentionally trying to deceive the reader? If so, you'll probably need to play some games of misdirection, dropping some hints but buried in passages that focus the reader's attention on something else entirely. That way when the truth is revealed, the reader can look back and realize, "Oh yeah, there was some mention of that earlier but it didn't seem important or relevant at the time."

Is the character suppressing memories that even s/he doesn't want to think about yet? If so, there might be passing thoughts that are very vague from the reader's point of view and that the character (narrator?) quickly veers away from by pointedly changing the subject -- there'd be no way to guess what the character is avoiding, but there would be clear indication that there is some deeper secret there that is being avoided, and the reader will be curious to read on and find out what it is.

Or if you want the reader to realize that the character is keeping a secret but not know just what it is, you can use very vague words in referring to it. Pronouns without antecedents. "The thing" or "that topic" or even "the secret."
You probably couldn't keep this up very long without annoying the reader if whatever it is is central to the character's scenes. But if it only needs to be mentioned once or twice a chapter, with several chapters in between where it's not relevant or mentioned at all, you might be able to sustain it for longer. The reader would be aware there's something as yet undisclosed going on with this character and be curious about it in the back of their minds, but hopefully everything else that's front and center with the character would take most of the focus and be interesting enough even without the secret to keep the reader reading.

If you want the reveal toward the end to be a big surprise, you'll probably want to go the misdirection route, so readers aren't aware of reading hints earlier but can recognize them in retrospect. If there's no preparation at all and you just spring something gamechanging on the reader out of nowhere, that will feel like a cheat.

I honestly don't know how readers might react. Part of the secret is there for those able to make the connection. But the other part is only hinted at.

Generally I hate it. If it's important enough to matter to the story, the characters would think about it.

The only time I like it is when it's something the character figures out from information available to me. This is fairly common in mysteries, and I think it's fine. If the information is there, but I'm just not smart enough to figure it out, I can buy the character keeping a secret.

Otherwise, I can't think of a case where the character held back important information for any reason other than the writer didn't know how to tell the story without having the character keep a secret.

I've had POV characters put off explaining things until the information is necessary to the plot. In my WIP, there are two main narrations: one with more plot-based stuff, one that explains all the pseudoscience. Sometimes, the pseudoscience narrator just drops off the chapter with "we'll talk about that later" or "remind me to explain that," but it only works because I have that character break the fourth wall all the time.

I mean, it might not work at all since it's an experiment, but so far, people tend to like that POV and the "secrets" are more quirky than actually secretive/ominous. I think if you're going for something more secretive/ominous, it would help to have the narrator beat around the bush a lot, or focus on other things with the occasional mention of the elephant in the room.

I love unreliable pov characters, but it has to be clear they are unreliable in some way. If I find out at the end of the book that the author has kept things from me just to keep secrets even though the character knows them and it would've been valuable to know those things before... Yeah, not a fan of that.

A character might not want to think/be thinking about something, or might not remember something, but that's just normal storytelling.

Your mc should have a good reason for not telling the reader the secret, and it should come out around half way through, like a turning point, not at the end. What you don't want to do is build the entire story around the secret, only to have a floppy last chapter about how the antagonist is actually the mc's dad. The story should continue afterwards.

Jamesaritchie said:

Generally I hate it. If it's important enough to matter to the story, the characters would think about it.

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Not necessarily. I have many secrets that I don't think about for months at a time, unless something reminds me. That doesn't make them unimportant; it just means I've succeeded in repressing them.

Wouldn't do it unless, somehow, the character is somehow keeping the secret from themselves as well. It's the "You know what they know" thingy about the POV. I'm more into the "reader knows but character doesn't" sort of thing.

Kerry

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd has a good unreliable narrator, but not really because he's not actively thinking about something.

Well, there's the unreliable narrator technique. I think there are different ways to handle this, but it works best in first person, and if it eventually becomes clear that the pov is a liar, or if he or she really believes the falsehoods him or herself for whatever plausible reason (the latter can work well in third person limited too).

In limited third, it can be more challenging to have the narrator be unreliable, even if you're in at a very close/deep narrative distance, because it can feel like the author is lying, rather than the pov character. You can, however, have details of something simply not come up, or be referred to obliquely in ways that are not blatantly untrue or obviously misleading, but that will either pique the reader' curiosity and make them want to learn more, or make them gloss it over until later in the story when the details do become important.

With a limited third pov, it can be a matter of whether or not it's plausible for the character to be thinking about the issue in question in any detail. He might legitimately be thinking, "Oh, god, I hope she doesn't learn my secret," without dwelling on what that secret is.

Knowing what not to disclose to the reader at a given point in the story can be as important as knowing what to tell the reader.

The most likely time for a character to think about their secret is when there's a threat of exposure.

Sometimes a character has a 'secret,' but to him or her, the secret isn't important, or that big a deal. To even think about.

But at some point in the story it becomes evident or the character does indeed mention it - to someone else.

'Yeah, I'm a good marksman, but I put away my guns long ago...'

This is a true secret my Dad carried most of his life. Had no need to tell anyone about it until one day ...

Or, Yes, the woman in that old photograph was part African-American, my great-grandmother. Might explain your curly hair.

True secret found out by looking at old photos of my grandfather's family.

So secrets which seem sort of - insignificant? - to the secret-holder might emerge in a story later rather than sooner.

The same can happen in a fictional story.

Jamesaritchie said:

Generally I hate it. If it's important enough to matter to the story, the characters would think about it.

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I have to agree with this. The essential problem is how to have something that's important enough to affect the story line without being important enough to "come up", even in thought. And if you can't pull it off, you will leave the reader feeling cheated.

The only time I've ever seen someting like this work at all was a situation where one of the protags knew her thoughts could be monitored and therefore trained herself not to think of the Big Secret (tm). Trouble is, by that point it was pretty obvious what was coming anyway.

Christracy19 said:

The secret is an event that happened to the character a long time ago that isn't terribly important in the story until the very end when the squeal is set-up. It's not something the character likes to think about either.

So in that context could it work?

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I would be concerned about a Deus Ex Machina situation there. You get the MC cornered by 5 thugs in the climax and suddenly "oh, by the way, the MC is an ex-navy-seal and can kill you with his fingernail. It just never came up before." No, sorry.

Buffysquirrel said:

Not necessarily. I have many secrets that I don't think about for months at a time, unless something reminds me. That doesn't make them unimportant; it just means I've succeeded in repressing them.

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So do I, but if the secret is something that's important to the events you're going through at the moment, you will think about it. It's unavoidable. It isn't about how important the secret is to you, but how important it is to what the character is going through at the moment.

If the secret is relevant to the story, if it plays a part in the character surviving or not surviving, or solving a murder, or answering whatever question he must answer, then he will think about it.

If he had sex with a goat while on a drunken spree in college, he might well not think about it. But it he's being blackmailed because of this, he will think about it.

I see no way that a secret critical to his situation at hand can be kept from the reader because he will not only think about it, it will be on his mind constantly.

Christracy19 said:

The secret is an event that happened to the character a long time ago that isn't terribly important in the story until the very end when the squeal is set-up. It's not something the character likes to think about either.

So in that context could it work?

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Are you in first person or third person, and if third, how close?

What if something, maybe related to the actual plot, maybe not, somewhere during the first half of the story reminds the character of that long-ago experience just enough to provoke a brief reaction thought with few if any details. Just a single sentence to plant a seed without giving anything away. Maybe buried in a passage with several different memories that seem more relevant or interesting at the time.

By the time it's time for the reveal, the reader will most likely have forgotten about that sentence completely while being caught up in a hundred pages or so of exciting present story in between. But then the surprise new development will then remind the reader: Oh yeah, this was mentioned earlier but I didn't realize it would be important.

There are two things that I've seen go horribly wrong with MCs with deep, dark secrets:

1) The secret isn't sufficiently foreshadowed "because it wasn't important" and the author hides crucial information that the reader would need to figure out the mystery themselves. Then, when the truth comes out, it comes off like an info dump: "This minor detail that we never discussed in any detail is now critically important, and it's affecting us RIGHT NOW, AREN'T YOU SHOCKED"

2) Or the author comes off as a tease. "This terrible event reminded the MC of something that happened 10 years ago. But no, he clamped down on the thought. He wouldn't think about that. About her." The author hints that there's something there, but oh no! The character won't think about it! Ever! So the reader never learns anything except that there's something important. And mysterious!

But as long as the reader has all the relevant facts before the secret is revealed and the MC has a very believable reason for not dwelling on it, it should be fine.

But I'm not a big fan of plots hinging on big secrets about your protagonist, personally. It takes a lot of grace.

One book where there was a dark secret that was hidden from the reader for most of it was The Prince of Tides. As I recall (it's been a while since I read it), there was thing with the MC where his brother had died. This wasn't a secret, but the way he'd died was. It was revealed bit by bit as the story unfolded, and at the end, the horrific, dark family secret came out.

It was in first person, and it still worked. Anne Rivers Siddons is also pretty good at writing books with deep, dark family or personal secrets that don't come out right away. I'd probably reread some of her books (and Conroy's too) if I wanted to write a novel that made that sort of thing central to the plot.

Angry Guy said:

I would be concerned about a Deus Ex Machina situation there. You get the MC cornered by 5 thugs in the climax and suddenly "oh, by the way, the MC is an ex-navy-seal and can kill you with his fingernail. It just never came up before." No, sorry.

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This is where the well-placed hints would be important. The ones that make the reader slap her forehead and thing, "Oh, of course! I see it now." Yes, this is challenging to do well, but so are lots of things in writing.

Definitely a good thing to run by some naive (as in, they don't know what you're trying to do) beta readers and see what they think and suggest.

A big danger with secrets that are hinted at, however, is that when the truth comes out, it can seem anticlimactic. This wasn't the case with the Prince of Tides for me, but I have read books where my reaction was puzzlement over why said secret was so horrible that the protagonist had suppressed it, or no one wanted to think or talk about it.

So what. You cheated on your husband. People do that all the time. Not nice, but hardly shocking.

Of course, that could be a flaw of characterization too. Sometimes even "trite" secrets can take on a deep significance when seen through the eyes of the reality of the character in question.