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122 Part II: Realising That Character Is Everything
✓ Think of an important object in your story – something that reveals
something or gives away a secret. Write a scene that includes this
object, but conceal the object from readers in some way. Continue the
exercise, now making clear what the important object is.
✓ Write a conversation in which a character’s unspoken thoughts are
contrasted with what she says. Consider the sort of things people think
but never say, and why they never say them.
✓ Write a scene including your main character and another character
who has a secret. Your main character doesn’t know the other’s secret.
During the scene, drop in three clues as to what that secret may be: one
at the start, one in the middle, one at the end. Don’t be explicit. You can
use a physical detail, a verbal comment, an action and so on. Your main
character never does discover the secret in the scene.
✓ Write about a character with a secret she covers up. How does the
secret and keeping it affect the person physically: do her actions, dress
or mannerisms show that she’s hiding something?
Secrets that characters don’t know about themselves
You can let readers know things that the character isn’t aware of through
what she says – making use of Freudian slips or statements that give away
more than the speaker knows – and through her dreams, which the person
may fail to understand, though readers will!
Try out these ways of revealing to the reader things the character doesn’t
know about herself:
✓ Write a piece in which your character talks to someone who understands
something the speaker doesn’t.
✓ Write a dream revealing the character’s secret fears or desires.
Secrets that everybody else knows
Sometimes characters can hang on to a secret, only to discover that people
knew about it all the time.
Try out these exercises to explore what happens when a character has a
secret or discovers what everyone else knew all along:
✓ Think of an occasion when you discovered that other people knew
something you thought they didn’t. How did they know? Then think of a
fictional character in the same situation, drawing on your own emotions
and experiences. Write about the secret being released: what happens
then?