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Chapter 9: Creating Complicated, Well-Rounded Characters
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‘I don’t know how you do it in Russia,’ I began, rather nettled by his
attitude. He interrupted me.
‘In Russia, and in general everywhere – in a newspaper, for instance. The
colour of the ink and the shapes of the letters are the same.’
—Joseph Conrad (Under Western Eyes, Everyman’s Library, 1991,
first published 1911)
Sharing and keeping secrets
Everyone has secrets: things that they’d never tell anyone, things they’re
ashamed of, things they won’t admit even to themselves, and secrets that
they share with only a few selected people. These can be family secrets,
secrets between lovers and friends, professional secrets, and ones held by
governments and corporations. Secrets can be damaging, but it’s hard to
imagine that people can ever be entirely open about everything. The secret
things inside your soul are part of who you are.
Societies tread a narrow line between secrecy and privacy. When people
invade your private self, it can feel like a violation. Many people live in
oppressive societies where the state invades privacy in the name of security;
even in the West this is the case, with the advent of increasingly sophisticated
technology. This has been the subject of much spy fiction, such as the
novels of John le Carré and Charles McCarry.
The secrets that a character holds can form the core of a piece of fiction. A
character can be on a quest to uncover a family secret, or may hold a secret
that she’s afraid of revealing. Sometimes the secret coming out is a good thing
for the character, sometimes it’s a disaster and sometimes it’s a mixture.
Try this exercise to see what happens when an aspect of a character’s secret
life is revealed to others. Describe a secret place and say what it means to
the character. Then relate someone discovering that secret place: what effect
does it have on your protagonist? I’ve used the example of a secret pace, but it
could be a secret conversation that’s overheard, or a secret letter that’s found.
Here are some more fun ways to practise using secrets in your work:
✓ Write a secret diary entry for your character. Have her hide it and then
suspect someone of having read it. How does she feel? How does the
event affect what she writes in her diary in the future? Does she confront
the suspect or try to find out for sure by some other means?