Writing Tips: When To Reveal A Secret

No matter if your book has one big secret or so many little ones that every character is hiding something, the trick to making the most of any secret is knowing exactly when to reveal it.

Writing Tips: When To Reveal A Secret

Now, if you’re thinking your story isn’t a mystery, a murder, or a treasure-hunting adventure, and therefore it isn’t full of secrets, don’t despair! Any type of story can include a secret, and it’s usually more interesting if it does.

Secrets hook readers, and just one, even if it’s relegated to the sidelines of the tiniest subplot, can still enhance your story with these tips!

In Your Endings

Like a plot twist, a secret can come into your story anytime. For the reveal, however, timing is everything. To make the most of it, reveal it to the reader during your endings.

Secrets revealed at the end of a chapter beg the reader to keep reading, while secrets revealed at the end of the book bring the story to an appropriate close, regardless of whether the secret is big, small, shocking, sad, or happy. Or a secret will grab a reader if the reveal serves to close off one book and set up the next in the case of a series.

Whatever the type of ending yours is, a secret reveal during it will only benefit your story.

When It Leads To Something Bigger

Another option over adding a secret at the very end of a chapter is saving it for when it will lead to something bigger.

Dropping the secret reveal within a chapter, either at the start or mid-way, means you can reserve those coveted closing sentences for something more surprising than the secret—like its consequences!

As an example, let’s say you’ve revealed halfway through chapter 5 that the main character’s big secret is that he cheated on a final exam and hid the cheat sheet in what he thought was a random bag. That backpack turned out to be his best friend’s, and the chapter ends with the consequences of that cheating secret—his friend being caught out and expelled!

While placing the secret reveal at the end of the chapter would also work, having it halfway through allows you to build tension with the hiding of the evidence, and then the consequences of his best friend getting the blame is the icing on the cake/secret.

When It Will Have Impact

If you really want to get some mileage out of a secret and its reveal, save it for when it will have the most impact.

Using the MC in the last example, dropping the reveal that he’s the cheater has exposed a secret to the reader, and created consequences, but what if the best friend being caught with the cheat sheet in his bag is instead the only event revealed? The secret of his best friend, the MC, being the real cheater, is then left for later.

If, after the best friend has been expelled and his future ruined, he then discovers the MC’s cheating/stashing evidence secret, there’s a bigger impact.

Someone the best friend trusted, someone who comforted him, and tried to vouch for him, was the person who did the act he was blamed for, even if it was unintentional.

Such a scenario is more fun to write, and the secret reveal has a bigger impact on the characters and the story.

When It Changes Things Dramatically

The best secrets prompt change, either within the characters themselves or the story, so it’s the perfect tip to end this post on.

A secret revealed might put the main character on a different path. It will destroy relationships. It could make it so they can’t go back to the life they once had. In our example case, it’s likely the MC and his best friend will never be friends again. The reveal of the MC’s secret has changed things dramatically. It could also alter their lives.

The MC might get into a great college based on his rigged exam results and leave his best friend and his hometown behind, never to look back. Or, he could confess/be outed by his best friend when the secret is revealed. The MC is then expelled instead, never leaving behind a life he’d been so desperate to escape he thought cheating was the only to do it.

Secrets can be powerful in any story, and revealing them to create a dramatic change can be just as impactful. Use such a tip and the others here, and you’ll have the secret to revealing secrets in your own writing.

— K.M. Allan

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