essay about a time i discovered a secret

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Could I reveal my secret and tell the real story of my life?

I woke up last month to find someone had slipped a novel into my mail slot. The text on the dust jacket got my attention: Ruth, now in her "twilight . . . looks back on a harrowing childhood and on the unaccountable love and happiness that emerged from it." I jumped in. Near the end of the book I came to this line: "If I can't ever tell anyone the true story . . . then no one will ever know me."

I hung on to those words all day.

I happened to be writing an essay about my life and the self-blame I’d long carried about having had cancer. But then I stopped, snagged in that very same way as when I had come to Ruth’s admonition. Would I include a certain seven words?

“I had been molested as a child.”

I don’t believe in coincidences. I thought there was a reason why I couldn’t let go of novelist Carrie Brown’s prescient sentence just as I was trying to write my “true story” for the very first time.

Getting to the point where I could consider putting those seven words down on paper had taken a lifetime. I’d had some bad starts. In 1989, when I was 32 years old, I confided my secret to one of my closest friends, who in turn revealed to me that a recent rape had triggered memories of having been molested by her grandmother. Within the year, with her own secret bleeding into her psyche, my friend — only 26 — took her life.

Soon after, I made another attempt at disclosure, confiding in a new boyfriend, who seemed to love and accept me despite the stained soul that I saw in the mirror. But he betrayed me: He cheated on me, and when I moved out he tried to blackmail me with my secret. To my horror, he sent a postcard (a postcard!) to my office announcing a meeting of sexual abuse survivors at my apartment. The so-called invitation, he threatened, would also be mailed to my entire family — outing me as a victim — unless I agreed to move back in with him.

It got worse, as my ex’s bluster turned into a death threat, and I had to make a decision about what to do. I’ve been good at many things in my life, but standing up for myself hasn’t been one of them. This time, though, I overcame the terror, stood my ground and took him on, starting with a police order of protection. He flinched and disappeared from my life.

Once again I was alone with my secret, which now proved too much for me. I made an appointment with the psychotherapist I’d seen at age 23, when I was just coming out 12 years earlier. For several appointments I dutifully went to his office but couldn’t answer the question: “Why are you here?”

Finally, this is what I wrote down and then read out loud to him:

"As much as I have tried, I can't actually say to you what I need to without reading the words from this paper. . . . I'm afraid to read this because in telling you the story it will become real. But, I need to become real. I'm ready."

I read to him the details of what my paternal grandfather did to me as a young boy, ending with “I don’t know where all of that fear went. It just stayed inside me. I buried it that quickly and that perfectly.”

I continued in therapy and made quiet disclosures to a few of my closest friends, but it didn’t feel like enough.

I had dreams, terrible ones, like the one in which my 8-year-old self was in class and my grandfather entered the room seeking a victim. In the dream, he chose my real-life friend Charlotte, who stood up and said, “No, I won’t go with you.” When my turn came, no such words came from me, reminding me of the hauntingly accusatory saying: “There are no victims, only volunteers.” I still thought it was my fault.

Over two decades, I talked to those friends about revealing more — but there was no real reason to. Why? My grandfather was dead. I was married. I didn’t need anything from anyone.

Until recently, that is, when I realized I did need something, when it suddenly seemed wrong not to disclose the truth. Maybe it was actress Ellen Page’s coming-out statement (“I am tired of lying by omission”) or Dylan Farrow’s accusation of sexual abuse against Woody Allen (which he has denied). I’d previously come out as gay and I’d talked and written about having had cancer. Shedding a skin had always made a positive difference in how I felt about myself and in deepening my relationships.

My friend and confidante, Amy, wrote me: “You’re tired of holding your secret, you want it to come out and you’ll deal with whatever fallout there may be. It’s time.”

I told my sister, then my brother, both of whom instinctively supported me. Finally, I went to see my parents, both in their 80s and not in the best of health. I’d thought about this conversation a hundred times before, but this was no dress rehearsal. Unable to tamp down the fear lodged in my throat, I decided to step over it and just tell my story.

When I finished, my mom, a retired psychiatric social worker, put on her professional hat and said: “Sexual abuse is all too common and hidden away.”

Unlike many others who reveal their secret, I was fortunate: Neither my mother nor my father disputed what I was saying; in fact, it all seemed to ring true to them, and Mom even added other bits to the narrative. For example, she wondered aloud, why had my late grandmother become apoplectic whenever my grandfather visited us without her? “We thought she was controlling. Now I wonder if she was trying to protect you kids.”

Despite my many rehearsals for this moment, the drama played out in a way I’d never imagined: The healing power of my family’s love and support was immediately tangible. Of course, I wondered whether my grandfather had sexually assaulted anyone else, but that’s a question for another day.

As I've told others since then, I'd been healing in ways I'd hadn't even hoped for. My friend Peter sent an e-mail, reading in part: "Life seems to be a continual act of coming out, isn't it? The boundaries we think are uncrossable, the unnamable corners of our soul that we live in fear of bringing to light . . . are the very regions that allow us to feel complete if we dare to explore them. So thank you for crossing borders, shining a light into those corners — they only make you more lovable, more admirable."

I don’t quote Peter to suggest that I am more lovable or admirable now but to remind myself of this truth (to paraphrase James Joyce from “Ulysses”): Our secrets sit silent in the dark recesses of our hearts, but even they weary of their tyranny, willing and wanted to be dethroned.

Or as Amy said: “It was simply time.”

Petrow writes the "Civilities" advice column for The Post. He can be reached at www.facebook.com/stevenpetrow and www.twitter.com/stevenpetrow.

Essays About Discovering Yourself: Top 5 Examples

Discover our top examples on essays about discovering yourself, plus prompts to guide you in writing your next essay.

Self-discovery is both a daunting and fantastic journey. Each person has a unique path to take. Reflecting on who you were, are, and will be is a lifelong adventure that includes constant self-examination. Because of self-discovery, we learn more about ourselves and become more in control of our decisions and wants in life.

A deep connection with our inner selves is critical to living an accomplished life. It’s an essential factor for us to thrive without overthinking the hurdles that will continuously challenge us along the way. Discovering yourself doesn’t only benefit you. It also helps you cultivate healthy relationships with other people and the community.

To write a powerful self-discovery essay, read through our examples below.

1. My Journey Of Self Discovery by Anonymous on Samplius.com

2. discovering myself by claire van de weghe, 3. answering the question of “who i am” by anonymous on gradesfixer.com, 4. finding yourself vs. creating yourself by lukas supovitz-aznar, 5. finding myself by megan of manasquan, nj, 1. who am i, 2. my best qualities, 3. private me vs. public me , 4. my journey to self acceptance, 5. me: the good and the bad, 6. self discovery and bad experiences, 7. who i aspire to be.

“High school has taught me about myself, and that is the most important lesson I could have learned. This metamorphosis has taken me from what I used to be what I am now.”

The writer shares their transformation from a shy and introverted high schooler to a vocal individual who’s not afraid to share opinions. They did it through education and keeping their emotions in check. If before the author thought that mistakes meant they failed, now they believe mistakes are okay as long as they learned something from them.

Aside from taking pride in how they can now think for themselves through developing courage, the writer also reminds the readers that they need to believe in themselves no matter their challenges. You might also be interested in these essays about the countryside .

“As someone who has always wanted to do good in the world, I’ve struggled with the choice between taking care of myself and worrying about other people. I’ve come a long way, both regressing and progressing at different points, but throughout it all I’ve learned so many different lessons.”

Van De Weghe opens her essay by baring her previous attitude. She believed she needed to make people laugh so they would accept her. Next, she recounts how she found it overwhelming to be without her sister and any friends, ultimately deciding to stop attending school.

When she grew older, Van De Weghe adjusted her personality to fit each clique. Then, during the pandemic, when she didn’t need to be around others, she had the time to reflect on who she wanted to be. Finally, she concludes her essay with the realization that she wants to be strong, no matter the pressure others force upon her. Van De Weghe believes that if she lives as her authentic self, she’ll be able to find her rightful place in the world.

“In this course of life, we not only learn what has been taught to us, but we also know ourselves in different ways… Who I am is always changing, I will always be learning, and evolving. Thus, the search for the answer to the questions of who I am is life long process.”

The writer starts with questions that pertain to their personal information (age, religious belief, etc.), eventually culminating in the question of who they are. In the next section, the author describes their personality and shares how they developed their disposition in life. 

The essay continues to share the author’s experiences that contribute to their character. These encounters include learning to swim, reading The Catcher in the Rye , relating to Holden Caulfield, and many other instances that let the readers better understand the writer.

“Naturally you are born with a certain amount of personality and talent through genetics, but success is created after you are born, not before. The search for real self is fiction, your personality is not waiting to be stumbled upon one day.”

Aznar is adamant about proving that “finding yourself” is only a manufactured concept. He doesn’t rely on “destiny” and instead believes people are responsible for creating themselves and their futures. He argues that having thoughts and ambitions molds a person’s character. That everyone is under the lifelong-experiment to invent and improve themselves by picking influences and defining constrictions. 

Aznar adds a news article about social construct, an interview with actor Will Smith regarding self-creation, and a take on The Great Gatsby concerning morals and destiny to prove his point further.

“I think that I know what I want, but sometimes it is hard to tell. I am still not exactly sure who I am, why I want certain things, why I can be so hardheaded and stubborn. I do not yet fully understand myself, which makes being a teenager quite frustrating at times.”

Megan uses a quote that resonates with the crux of her essay in her introduction. She then shares her frustration with her doubts regarding what she wants her future to be. She’s also frank about how taxing it is to be a teenager.

She elucidates how exasperation during her teenage years affects her mood and her family. However, she also notes how these formative years guide young people in handling real-world interactions. 

7 Helpful Writing Prompts on Essays About Discovering Yourself

Check out these top essay writing tips before you start your essay.

Take the time to think of who you are as an individual, friend, or child of your parents. For this prompt, describe to your readers your interests and quirks. Give them an idea of why you are a unique human being. To make it more interesting, interview the people you constantly interact with and ask them for details that connect to you or your personality.

An excellent way to discover more positive things about yourself is to point out what you think makes you likable. Then, like the previous prompt, you can ask acquaintances to highlight your appealing characteristics. Next, add how you plan to develop and enhance these aspects.

This prompt is perfect if you constantly present different personalities in your private space versus when you meet the public. Include the reasons why you think facing the public seems like a performance. If you’re uncomfortable sharing your experience, select a well-known celebrity who needs to be careful of what they can let the general public see to protect their private lives. Then, discuss why creating various personalities help people cope or chip away at their real character over time. 

Everyone has insecurities we deal with in our lives. In your essay, share what you did before and the steps you are taking to accept yourself. These steps can include continuously curating your social media feed so you don’t see unrealistic body standards or having a gratitude journal.

Discovering yourself means identifying both the good and bad parts. To strengthen your self-trust and fully believe in yourself, acknowledge your unfavourable traits and how you can change them.

Narrate a bad experience that had a significant impact on you. Share the reason this encounter affected you and the way you perceive yourself. Then, tell your readers how you turned this bad experience into a chance to learn more about yourself.

Think of the characteristics that the “perfect” person has and why. In this essay, you can use celebrities or family members as role models, describe why they inspire you and what it is about them you wish to see in yourself. Then, among these many good attributes, pick the top five traits you aspire to have and share your reasons.

To convince your readers to start their self-discovery, you must be persuasive. See our guide on persuasive writing.

Maria Caballero is a freelance writer who has been writing since high school. She believes that to be a writer doesn't only refer to excellent syntax and semantics but also knowing how to weave words together to communicate to any reader effectively.

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Unpacking ‘The Secret Life of Secrets’

In a new book, Michael Slepian considers the costs of keeping quiet.

By Elisabeth Egan

Michael Slepian had just finished presenting the results of his research on secrets at Columbia University when he glanced at his phone and realized he’d missed two calls from his father.

The behavioral scientist was about to learn something his parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles had known for his entire life: that he had been conceived by artificial insemination from an anonymous sperm donor.

In his new book, “The Secret Life of Secrets,” Dr. Slepian writes, “This … was being revealed to me at the end of one of the most important days of my professional life. I was not sitting down.”

He wondered, “Why was this secret kept from me?”

Dr. Slepian, who is now a professor of business and leadership at Columbia Business School, talked about the answer to that question in an interview and the broader implications of crossing your heart and promising not to breathe a word about something. The following conversation has been edited and condensed.

What is a “secret,” exactly?

I define secrecy as the intention to hold back some piece of information from one or more people. The information itself is the secret. Even if you haven’t recently had to hide it in a conversation, it’s still a secret if you intend to keep it from others.

What’s the difference between secrecy and privacy?

There are all kinds of things we don’t discuss that are not secrets. For many people, it’s their sex lives. The details may not be anything they’re necessarily keeping secret; they just have this idea that this is not the sort of thing we talk about. But if I was asked a question related to it by someone close to me, I would answer the question. If you wouldn’t answer that question, if the intention is to hold the information back if it ever comes up, then it’s a secret.

Is it unhealthy to keep a secret to yourself?

The harm of a secret doesn’t seem to be from having to hide it in a social interaction, but having to live with it alone in your thoughts. The more a person’s mind wanders to their secret, the harder it is not having emotional support or advice. When we’re alone with something important, especially something harmful or bothersome, we tend not to develop the healthiest ways of thinking about it.

What kind of secret is the most difficult to keep?

The secret you’re thinking about all the time is the one that’s hardest to keep.

There are three primary dimensions by which people think about their secrets. One is what we call “social connectedness” — secrets that involve other people. Another dimension is how moral the secret is. A third is how it’s related to our goals, which often means our profession. Each dimension has a unique harm.

What are the best conditions for sharing a secret?

If you choose the right person, you get to talk about your secret and it still remains a secret, so that’s an effective strategy. Only if someone responds very negatively does confiding a secret make things worse; so essentially if someone has a different set of morals or if you think they’d be scandalized by what you’re telling them, that’s not someone to confide in. The person more likely to keep your secret safe is someone who would think about it in a similar way as you when it comes to the morality of the issue.

Do we need to worry about the burden we’re placing on a friend by telling them a secret?

People can feel glad someone felt comfortable enough to reveal something sensitive; it’s an act of intimacy that can bring us closer together. But if we’re both in the same group of friends, that can be difficult because the secret could be on our minds and we can’t talk to those other people about it. If someone distant to you reveals something big, it’s not necessarily going to be on your mind a lot.

If Reese Witherspoon called to say she picked “The Secret Life of Secrets” for her Book Club, could you keep the secret until it was announced?

With positive secrets, there’s usually a plan for when they will be revealed — and because they have an expiration date, those secrets can be exciting and energizing. So maybe I’m not allowed to talk about this phone call for the month of May, but once it becomes public knowledge, I’m allowed to talk about it in June. I think the question is, How can we steal the benefits from positive secrets and apply them to negative secrets?

How do our personal beliefs affect our relationship to secrecy?

A sociologist found that if you’re anti-abortion, you’re less likely to learn about people close to you who had abortions. People don’t want to reveal a secret to someone who will be scandalized, or who will find it so morally objectionable that they’re going to reveal it to a third party. But that means we’re not getting the same information from our social networks; it means you don’t understand how common a particular experience is.

How does our relationship with secrets evolve as we age?

Even young children know about the intimacy of sharing information. If you ask a child what makes someone a best friend, they might answer, “It’s someone you share secrets with.” This is because children are usually keeping childhood-sized secrets and they also get this positive social force from sharing those secrets with their friends and learning their friends’ secrets. When things start to look different is when they start hitting their teenage years and now all of a sudden they’re concerned about social approval, and they can get into more trouble. That’s when secrecy starts to look more like an adult’s, where people are more concerned about the consequences of revealing information.

Do you think your work helped you navigate that conversation with your dad?

One of the hard parts of having a secret is, even if you want to reveal it, when is the right moment to do so? I think this is what my parents were experiencing by the time I was an adult. There’s no perfect moment to reveal a secret like that. Sometimes you’re going to have to make that moment happen, and it requires being a little bit brave.

Learning that I wasn’t biologically related to my father was shocking, but it also made me think about what it was like for my parents to keep that secret. Years later, when I was writing this book, I asked them what it was like. Their experience aligned with what I was learning about in my own research: that even a secret that never comes up in conversation can be really burdensome. Hiding secrets is the easy part. The hard part is everything else. The hard part is having to think about this thing and not share it with others.

A Guide to Building and Nurturing Friendships

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All relationships require some work. For your friendships to thrive , focus on your listening skills, compassion and communication. And make sure to spend time together .

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It’s quite common for people to feel jealousy or envy toward their friends. Luckily, there are ways to turn those emotions into an opportunity  for growth.

Being a good friend means offering your support in times of need. Just remember: Sometimes less is better than more .

The Secrets You Keep Are Hurting You — Here's How

7 experiments give useful insight on secrecy and how to manage secrets..

Posted January 22, 2019 | Reviewed by Davia Sills

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"The best weapon of a dictatorship is secrecy, but the best weapon of a democracy should be the weapon of openness ." —Niels Bohr

Common wisdom tells us that keeping secrets can take a terrible toll, and revealing information can be a step toward recovery. The bigger the secret, the harder to keep it, the greater the potential conflict. Is one friend cheating on another, but you don’t know if you should say anything? Are you having financial difficulties but don’t want to tell your partner? Are you looking for another job on the down-low and having trouble playing your cards close to the vest with work friends?

That’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to secrets, and we are often party to keeping whatever it is quiet, even when we know it will come to no good. Why is that? Secrets are powerful, and openness is powerful, but all too often, secrecy seems like the path of least resistance.

Secrecy can reduce well-being, while sharing can increase satisfaction

There is plenty of research which shows that opening up, in jargon-ese “self-disclosure,” promotes intimacy . For example, research shows that couples who talk together about important relationship issues with other couples enjoy greater intimacy as reflected in measures of passionate love and relationship satisfaction. Women responded more strongly not only to self-disclosure but also to responsiveness.

Keeping secrets limits responsiveness by preventing people from acting naturally and sharing freely. Beyond that, keeping secrets may actually cause harm. Slepian and colleagues (2017) demonstrated in a study of 13,000 secrets that people may become distracted by secrets, leading to a preoccupation with them, decreased feelings of authenticity , and a reduced sense of well-being and satisfaction with one’s life.

We can often tell or at least suspect when someone has a secret from changes in behavior, nervousness, superficial explanations, efforts to redirect the conversation, telltale signs of deceit, and so forth. Secrecy can both preserve and destroy intimate relationships.

What is the psychology of secrecy?

According to researchers Slepian, Halevy, and Galinsky from Columbia and Stanford Universities, who have been intensively studying the many facets of secrets (e.g., Who do we trust with secrets? ), there are good reasons why keeping charged information to ourselves is draining, or worse. First of all, the goal of secrecy is concealment, concealment of information from one or more other people. There is a difference between information which must be kept secret and personal information which we may not have shared, but we would if it came up without fear of consequences.

So, researchers write, secrets necessarily create "motivational conflict"—"The goal to avoid the social costs of the information coming out conflicts with the goal to connect with others and maintain intimacy in close relationships by sharing the secret information." Because keeping secrets can undermine social relationships, secrecy can lead to feelings of loneliness and lead to isolation, in extreme cases. And holding secrets takes energy. It’s tiring to keep a secret, sometimes impossible.

It requires an exercise of will, vigilance over what one says, and overall using emotional and cognitive resources, leaving one with a residue of potentially negative feelings, including guilt … along with how prudent it can be to keep one’s own council and hold one’s tongue. No matter how you slice it, the theory says, keeping secrets is fatiguing, using up limited resources.

Could keeping secrets even affect our well-being? We keep secrets when we are with people, and to varying extents, we have secrets on our minds when we are not with people. It’s complicated and not well studied.

7 experiments dissect secrecy

In order to get a better understanding of what happens to us when we keep secrets, Slepian and colleagues designed a series of seven experiments to look at various factors, to see if and when keeping a secret is fatiguing, under what circumstances, and whether the cost of secret-keeping is seen in real-world consequences, including effects on performance and grit.

In each experiment, online surveys were used to catch a glimpse of a broader population than the college students psychological research often uses, with 200 participants in each experiment from 1-5, and 400 in each for experiments 6 and 7, the average age in the mid-30s. Participants were asked to think about a consequential secret they intended to keep to themselves and compare it with important personal information which they had not yet shared and did not mean to keep secret. They looked at measures of social isolation , thought to reflect motivational conflict because greater conflict about secrets leads to increased feelings of (and possibly actual) isolation.

The broad experimental set-up is multi-layered. In the first experiment, they looked at whether keeping secrets increased feelings of fatigue indirectly, as a result of social isolation. They found that those who kept secrets reported greater fatigue specifically related to the effort of keeping that info to themselves and that a significant portion of this fatigue was connected with resultant feelings of social isolation.

The next three experiments (2, 3, and 4) looked at how strong, personal feelings might influence the impact of secret-keeping. In experiment 2, participants were asked about information accompanied by feelings of shame , guilt, or embarrassment . Experiment 3 looked at the effect of underlying ambitions which might offset the problematic aspects of secrets: for example, holding admirable motivations for keeping secrets than others realized. In experiment 4, researchers considered how people felt about information which was unlikely to come up in conversation. We worry less about something unlikely to come up than topics we may not be able to avoid.

The fatiguing effect of secrecy, related in part to social isolation, generally held true, even after controlling for negative feelings and the low likelihood of the information coming up. However, for experiment 3, where mitigating private ambition was present behind the secret, fatigue was not higher, although those participants did still report greater feelings of social isolation related to keeping the secret.

Having a “good reason” to keep a secret seems to have a fatigue-protective effect, but still leaves one feeling cut off. It may be that, over time, even keeping secrets for good reasons may be a significant drain, a factor future research can investigate.

In experiment 5, participants moved away from reporting on feelings and rather looked to measures of behavior, including persistence and task performance. They were asked to think of secret versus non-secret information, estimate social isolation, and then perform a puzzle-solving task unscrambling anagrams.

Researchers measured how well they did and how many puzzles they solved. They again saw a connection between secret-keeping and social isolation. In addition, they showed that secrecy, indirectly via social isolation, reduced both persistence and performance. They went on to show that performance is most impacted by reduced persistence, which itself related to social isolation-induced fatigue.

The last two experiments, 6 and 7, dived deeper into the details of emotion and motivational conflict. Researchers asked about emotions using the PANAS-X (Positive and Negative Affect Schedule, for sadness, fear, hostility, and guilt, and directly measured motivational conflict by checking out how secrets can interfere with social goals (“affiliation goals”).

For example, surveys asked, “How much does having this secret” or “information unknown to others” “conflict with your goal to connect with other people” or “your goal to be close to the people around you?” and so on. Experiments 6 and 7 repeated the finding that keeping secrets was uniquely associated with greater fatigue related to social isolation.

Furthermore, experiments 6 and 7 found that social isolation was significantly higher in those reporting a greater motivational conflict, as hypothesized. They also showed that secrecy was associated with higher levels of all PANAS-X emotions: hostility, fear, guilt, and sadness. They found, statistically speaking, that sadness and social isolation are highly associated with one another, measuring a highly overlapping, underlying emotional state. Therefore, researchers took special steps to prevent this overlap from affecting the data analysis.

When the mathematical dust settled, they found that, regardless of fear, hostility, or guilt, social isolation stemming from secrecy independently predicted fatigue.

What are the implications for keeping or disclosing secrets?

Keeping secrets takes work and is fatiguing. It seems obvious, but it's easy to downplay... at our peril. People with higher levels of conflict about secrets give up more easily and perform more poorly on a cognitive task. One of the main reasons for the negative effect on energy level and performance is because secrets make us feel lonely and sad. They also can make us feel more fearful, hostile, and guilty, but sadness and isolation make us more tired.

Keeping secrets undermines our sense of well-being, of general life satisfaction, and opening up (under the right conditions) can lead us to feel happier, more authentic, more satisfied, and closer to others. As Slepian and colleagues note, “Secrecy creates a conflict between the goal to connect with others and the goal to keep the secret information unknown, which manifests in feelings of social isolation and motivational conflict.”

Opening up?

Unfortunately, it isn’t so easy as to go around telling everyone all our difficult secrets, nor is it always clear when and how it might be constructive to do. Nor does everyone want to hear it. As the theory of motivational conflict tells us, there are consequences to revealing sensitive information which on balance induce us to keep whatever it is under wraps. This can lead to inner torment, fatigue, and, famously, inadvertent slips when we reveal secret information, often with comedic and sometimes sadly tragic results.

The pressure to tell a secret can be so great, we impulsively blurt it out, rapidly reducing inner conflict and often setting in motion a series of momentous events, which are at the heart of many a great story and film. We can be pressured into telling secrets, and if it looks like we might crack, the pressure rises. Folks like to make trouble, often for their own gain, and exposing another's damaging secrets can be a Machiavellian way to get ahead. On the other hand, revealing secrets is often the key to justice.

Secrets can range from more benign to more insidious and shameful. The worse the secret, the greater the isolation and the greater the fatigue. While for many secrets, there is a real conflict between the cost of keeping the secret and the consequences of letting it out, there are many secrets which are kept under coercion and duress, out of dysfunctional family dynamics or societal norms to deny and suppress inconvenient truths.

The dilemma

This leaves us with frequent dilemmas. We know something, but do we tell? Is it better to share your concerns with a best friend about their partner’s fidelity and risk harming your relationship in the near-term, or keep it quiet, preserving the friendship , while enduring guilt and the fear that your friend may realize you let it go on longer than necessary? Are you upfront with your boss that you are thinking of a career change, or do you keep it under wraps, risking burning bridges?

Because we are social creatures, we can come to depend on others not rejecting us. Rejection causes social pain, akin to physical pain, and from an evolutionary point of view, being cast out of the group is an existential, survival threat.

People confronted with secrets can use this research to self-examine more effectively. What are the specific motivational conflicts I’m facing with this one? What are the consequences of keeping versus disclosing the secret, for myself and other stakeholders? How isolated do I feel with this secret, how much does it intrude when I’m not with other people, and how tiring is it? How much is keeping this secret affecting my well-being and ability to function, both socially and with unrelated tasks? What other emotions are keeping this secret stirred up? How have I learned to deal with secrets from my past experiences? What are some good ways, and appropriate times and settings, to open up about difficult secrets?

Armed with good questions like these and others, we can make more conscious and intentional decisions about what to do with our secrets, and how to open up with others to enjoy greater relationship satisfaction and passion.

Slepian, M. L., Chun, J. S., & Mason, M. F. (2017). The experience of secrecy. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 113(1), 1-33.

Slepian, M. L., Halevy, N., & Galinsky A. D. (2018).The Solitude of Secrecy: hinking About Secrets Evokes Goal Conflict and Feelings of Fatigue. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 1–23.

Grant Hilary Brenner, M.D., a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, helps adults with mood and anxiety conditions, and works on many levels to help unleash their full capacities and live and love well.

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Top Secret Fiction Writing Prompts

by Melissa Donovan | Nov 23, 2021 | Fiction Writing Prompts | 46 comments

Fiction writing prompts filled with secrets.

“Ssh, don’t tell anyone. Put it in the vault!”

Most of us have had those very words whispered into our ears. In fact, most of us have probably whispered those words into someone else’s ear.

They say everyone has a secret. I don’t know if that’s true, but I do know that secrets sure pique people’s curiosity.

And if you can capture a reader’s curiosity, you’ll have them hooked.

The Power of Secrets

Don’t your ears perk up just a little bit when you hear the word secret ? And don’t you get all quiet and attentive when someone says, “I have a secret to tell you?” Secrets are powerful. They imply mystery and drama; they evoke suspense and build tension; and they capture people’s attention. Most importantly, they keep readers turning pages.

Secrets can be integral to a plot, but usually the secrets belong exclusively to characters. In fact, sometimes a secret will shape a character’s personality. How would keeping a secret for decades impact a person’s behavior? What kind of secret would weigh on someone’s conscience? How do the other characters view someone who can’t keep a secret?

There are big secrets and little secrets, important ones and silly ones. Some secrets are cliché (“She had a baby and gave it up for adoption”) and others are funny (“One time, at band camp…”).

The best secrets are surprising. I’m not talking about the sitcom variety of the misunderstanding, where one character overhears another and gets the wrong idea. I’m talking about secrets that, when revealed, make readers’ jaws drop.

Secretive Fiction Writing Prompts

Think about the secrets in books like The Da Vinci Code (aff link) — secrets that shock you or make you think about the world in new ways. Try to come up with some interesting secrets for your fiction. Use the fiction writing prompts below to write a scene, a whole story, or to come up with some really great character traits or plot twists.

• A character is harboring a secret that is preventing them from fulfilling a true desire.
• Two characters share a secret, but it’s not what everyone thinks it is.
• It’s an old family secret, and there’s only one person alive who knows about it. Will they take it to the grave?
• There’s a secret and everyone knows about it except one particular character and it happens to affect that character the most.
• There is a small group of people who meet in secret at regular intervals.
• A character has a secret, and if anyone found out, it would destroy his or her life.
• One character discovers another character’s shocking, sad, or terrible secret.
• A character thinks they have a very private secret, but most of the people close to them know about it.
• A character knows a secret that would destroy one person’s life but save the life of someone else.
• There is a secret that would affect everyone on the planet, but only a small, elite group of characters know about it.

Tips for Writing Secrets Into Your Fiction

Writing secrets into your story can make it a lot more exciting, and you can conjure up secrets whenever a character seems flat or the plot is thinning out. But you have to be careful with secrets. Here are a few final tips for writing secrets into your fiction:

• Avoid common or stereotypical secrets unless you can give them a really intriguing twist. Examples: sordid affairs, the family member you never knew you had, the person who went to prison but didn’t commit the crime, etc.
• Usually, the audience gets in on the secret before a key character does, but don’t let it out too early. If you can, reveal the secret over time and make it a guessing game for the reader to figure out.
• If you build a lot of tension, you better have a secret that delivers. There’s nothing worse than a lot of buildup for something like “I’m the one who broke your favorite snow globe in second grade.” Try to come up with a real doozy.

Tell Me Your Secrets

If you have any secrets (real or made up), feel free to leave them in the comments, or post a secret from a novel or a film that you thought was especially clever.

Have fun with today’s top secret fiction writing prompts (how could you not?), and keep writing!

46 Comments

Very good topic, Melissa! As for me, it is one of the most essential for a blogger. Really. How can I make a potential reader actually read my post?(after she searched the Internet and landed on my page). I need to intrigue the reader, right? That is usually done by hooks like questions. Then how do I keep the reader keep coming back to my blog? Eureka!!! THE SECRET! I need to write a series of posts with a secret in it, revealing a bit along the way Very cool – practical advice indeed. THANKS!

Alik, I love how you always take the posts on fiction and poetry and apply them to blogging. That’s smart, because fiction and poetry have an entertainment factor that many blogs and other forms of nonfiction lack. However, when you start marrying these different types of writing, some pretty cool stuff can happen.

I think you’ve hit it on the nail Melissa. Secrets are the engines of most great stories. Your plot suggestions for the secret exercises are great. I think I’d like to tackle one in particular but I won’t tell you which one. 😉

No! You’re supposed to tell your secrets in the comments, not tease me! Heheh. I happen to love stories with secrets and twists, as long as they aren’t ones that have already been overdone in hundreds of other stories. Secrets are definitely fun! Maybe that’s because I don’t really have any of my own.

Secrets are compelling.

You’re #5 secret society exercise is particularly interesting. Cloak and dagger affairs wreak of intrigue and adventure.

I love the idea of the secret society story and although a few well-known stories have touched on this theme, it’s fairly uncommon, so I think there might be a lot of room to explore.

I got one but I can’t tell anyone. LOL

Ha ha. Very funny, Coby.

My secrets? I was a circus performer until the age of 5 but gave it up because it ate into my reading time. I love to bake and cook sumptious meals, but only eat dry toast and tea. I had blond, blond hair when I was little and was frequently stopped by strangers who commented on the length of my eyelashes. And I had so many speeding tickets in high school, my friends called me Speedy Gonzales.

(Okay, only one of those is true–which do you think it is?)

I know! I know! You like to bake and cook scrumptious meals!

I was reading the list of 10 things, and thought each one has so much potential!

About #8: A character thinks she has a very private secret, but actually, most of the people close to her know about it. One time I was picturing a story, a superheo story that’s a twist to Superman. Come on, put on a suit and glasses and then nobody can figure out who you are? The truth is, most people around Clark Kent knew that he’s Superman already. They just didn’t want to tell him because they didn’t want to hurt his feelings (What a stupid and obvious disguise you have, Clark!) Eventually there’s some sort of crisis and the secret came out (maybe with the villain’s help). Unfortunately I haven’t yet come up with a good story for it yet. There’s the idea, but I couldn’t come up with other details yet.

Oh, I love superhero stories. Never read comics, but I do love the movies and also books that have that same superhero flavor. And yes, I think Clark Kent’s disguise is pretty lame. Batman is the king of the superheroes in my world.

Secrets is a great writing prompt Melissa. I can’t think of a particularly good secret from a movie or book at the moment, but I did come up with this Mark Twain quote: “I once sent a telegram to 12 of my friends saying ALL IS DISCOVERED – FLEE AT ONCE. They all left town immediately.” 🙂

Thanks, Marelisa. That Mark Twain quote is pretty funny. He left us many wonderful quotes, and a lot of them are humorous.

The first time I read Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier, I was totally blown away. (Spoiler alert!) I went through most of the novel thinking Rebecca was this paragon, so the reveals at the end which completely upended all the reader’s assumptions were delightful.

This technique is one I use often on my cat blog, since there are so many misunderstandings and misconceptions about cats. Even though my readers might know the truth, they still love to deconstruct it with me.

Secrets can be planted in any character’s behavior. He’s moody, she’s excitable; tease that you will reveal why, and it adds a dimension to the character that might not even be pivotal to the plot, but will keep up The Narrative Drive.

Hey, that’s a great secret technique – give the character a very prominent behavioral trait and lead up to explaining why. Pretty cool.

Okay … the secret that was true? No, I was never actually a circus performer (although I WAS reading when I was 3). I do cook and bake scrumptious meals, but I EAT THEM. And I’ve never had a speeding ticket in my life (knock wood), though I’ve gotten two warnings. The true secret was that my hair was very, very blond when I was little and that strangers would stop and comment on my long eyelashes … strange but true!

Aw. I thought I got that one right. I guess I missed the “but” qualifier. I had blonde hair when I was little too (now it’s dark brown).

Well, they say the best lies have at least a fraction of truth in them…

–Debs last blog post.. Spinning Words

That’s the truth!

I do have to make the point that sometimes the secret has every little to do with the story. I think it’s called a MacGuffin – the secret is nothing but a plot device, but bears no real important in itself.

I like to use this quite a bit (at least, I think I do).

Secrets can be plot devices, and sometimes they’ll add interest to the story when used this way (if executed well). However, I think a writer has be careful not to use secrets that have nothing to do with the plot at all, otherwise it becomes obvious they’re just trying to fill up pages. I don’t think you have to worry about that, Matthew.

I suppose one of the biggest spoiled secrets in the galaxy is that Darth Vader is, in fact, Luke’s father! And on a related note, Princess Leia is Luke’s sister. When I was a wee child, none of this really made sense, then when I got older I had a big “Oooohh!” moment and shrugged it off. Kinda anti-climatic I guess.

Anyway, interesting timing for this secret talk. I’m in the midst of a storyline that involves #3 and partially #4, where a grumpy old uncle tells the secret of a certain tragic event that happened to his nephew’s mother many years ago. However, after letting someone read this secret, they felt it didn’t really fit with the story, and was probably better suited for another story altogether.

To fill you in, a young man moves from the city to the country after his father dies to live with his mean antisocial uncle on his farm and rebuilds his run down barn as a movie theater which attracts undesired attention and guests on the uncle’s land. The outraged uncle burns the barn which sparks a confrontation between the young lad and old man and the big secret is told why he is so bitter. (At the moment, the secret is the uncle accidentally kill’s the nephew’s mother when the boy was very young, and he was never told the truth.) Soon after, forgiveness and healing begins and uncle and nephew get along. It’s a challenging little tale I’m still trying to make sense of.

Luke Skywalker’s parentage is definitely one of the most famous secrets in the history of storytelling! Your story idea is excellent, and I know this because as I was reading your description, I could visualize it in my mind. That could be a film or a book.

Ooohhh the Da Vinci Code made me look at a lot of things differently that is for sure! I can’t wait for Angels and Demons!

In the stories I have written, I usually had a character with a secret, as my stories got better, the secrets did too! It is definetly an interesting turn of events when secrets are revealed!

Me too. Actually, I could not put The DaVinci Code down. I think I finished it in one day. Now there’s a story filled with really big secrets!

I love secrets! In a fantastic novel by Holly Black–which I recommend to ANYONE–the main character goes into a coffee shop. Nervous, she starts opening drawers to the table she’s sitting at and finds that it’s full of people’s secrets, all scrunched up, written on whatever people could find. I thought this was a brilliant idea!

The secret I remember the best was, “My best friend, her boyfriend and I went to get coffee. When my friend’s boyfriend wasn’t looking, I switched our mugs and spit in his cup so he would taste me in his mouth.” She phrases it much more eloquently than I do, but I thought that was such a weird, perfect secret!

Thanks for the suggestions!

That sounds like an interesting novel, Kit! The secrets (or at least one of them) were memorable and made an impact on you as a reader, so you know firsthand the power of secrets in fiction.

Definitely! I love those books (Tithe, Valiant, Ironside).

I forgot, though, to leave my own secret.

I’m terrified of commitment and getting to the end of my life and realizing that I’ve wasted so much time and done so many things that made me unhappy. And I don’t want to get married, because I’m afraid that after living with the person for a few years, I’d get bored.

Kit, have you ever heard of Post Secret? You should check it out. I have a feeling you would like it: http://postsecret.blogspot.com/

LOL that sounds like a funny secret. Either it backfired because they hadn’t brushed their teeth, or the guy craved the taste of her after the coffee.

Trying to write a book with a serect but each page tells a bit more so you have to read to the end before you find the full serect is a hard thing to do. Have tried this and come to 20,000 words but it not a full novel. how do I go on to tease it out

I wouldn’t push a story to fulfill some arbitrary word count. When writers do that, I think the work starts to feel forced, and readers can tell when someone is stretching out a piece of writing to meet word or page count. I remember my teachers could always tell too. End the story where the story ends. You don’t have to make it into a novel. You could do a novella or you could cut it some and turn it into a short story. Good luck to you!

I love unexpected twist! I love when something makes me look twice just to make sure I got it! In the Unborn move…SPOILER ALERT!!!!…..when we find out the main character is actually the crazy one I was so shocked! I believed her to be secret-less the whole time!!! I came up with a little twisty poem of my own: Down, Down So far away One little girl sits on a bank to play A little reflection she can see “My house, and there is me” But, to her, the reflection wasn’t quite right Outside it was day, in the water it was night And here she was happy, she was free But in the water she was terrified as could be

She ran from the pond with a scream and a shout But the Mommy and Daddy couldn’t hear about For the police were too late to save her She drowned that night, with

Thanks for sharing your poem, Dezi.

Here’s my deepest and darkest secret:

back in elementary and high school, every time my assignment was to write a short story, I could never obey the page and word count limit. I always wrote 25 pages of pure gold and only a rare amount of teachers actually commented on my creativity.

Why is that a secret? It’s a testament to your passion for writing.

Oh I forgot to mention the negative consequence lol. The fact that most teachers in my life neglected to comment on my original ideas held me back from appreciating my own abilities. It held me back from writing consistently throughout my earlier years.

When you’re young and in school, you get so indoctrinated in a way of passive thinking. It all becomes about structure, grammar, proper spelling–which is required for a coherent read–but such a few amount of teachers would ever commend you for your ability to simply create a compelling story.

I always knew I enjoyed writing at some level, but it was never made conscious enough because of the lack of external encouragement from parents and teachers. Of course we’re ultimately responsible for our own behaviours and choices, and that’s why nowadays I’ve acknowledged my passion and write to my heart’s content. After all, having had only 4 teachers (out of the several in my entire life) incite my creativity is better than not having any at all!

Actually, I think encouragement from four teachers is pretty good, statistically speaking. I don’t think I got that kind of encouragement (with my creative writing) until college. I do understand that teachers are overwhelmed with papers to correct, and many bright students slip through the cracks, which is enormously unfortunate. Also, responses to creative writing are highly subjective. Teachers are human and will impose their own judgements on their students’ work. I’m sure a teacher who prefers literary fiction might not find much value in a fantasy story, for example. All things considered, I agree with you: we are ultimately responsible for our own choices and must follow our callings regardless of external encouragement (or lack thereof).

Secrets are dirty little things, we have to always hide them away from others where no one can see them. But we all have them. Most in retrospect are silly but some do affect our whole lives and maybe others as well. While they are the things we don’t let others see, it is also what people are dying to hear from others at a safe distance. As long as they’re not looking you in the eye, people would love to know all of your secrets. Gossip, is about uncovering everything about others while leaving one’s own self intact. The survival instinct to fit in meant life or death to the neanderthals but stunts our creative genius’ because of what will be revealed to the world about you. And the instinct starts to kick in. I can just hear the bullies in the school crowding someone into a corner and saying, “What’s your secret that you’ve been hiding?”

It’s true that most secrets are silly. Several times, a friend or relative has revealed some big secret and I wondered what the big deal was. It’s kind of funny, actually. But it’s also true that some secrets are dark, dangerous, and creepy.

I just have to hear the line “I see dead people” and I am again rocked by the huge secret of the movie The Sixth Sense. Best surprise ever in a movie.

RE Joni; All the clues were there for us all to see. I saw them all when I watched the movie the second time after reading about the clues. I had no clue the first time.

Yes, that was a good one.

I know I’m late to the party, but secrets power the heart’s engine forward. Hope for the everlasting love that we know lies in the middle of every room stuffed with every tragedy under the sun, keep us, forever like the little kid tossing all the extraneous, ugly BS from the room, looking for his/her present – “there’s a pony in here somewhere.” In my third novel my character returns to home to care for her narcissistic, abusive father who’s 2nd wife has left him for good. The secret that has driven off the 2nd wife poses a problem for me — do I release it as the scene unfolds or do I leave the secret in the basket with all the other secrets with which my character has to contend on her road to love and wholeness? I love the conundrums of the writing life…

I agree–the conundrums of the writing life are fascinating.

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Loose vs lose, how to cite a blog, apa paraphrasing, my secret place essay sample, example.

In my childhood and teen years, I had a perfect place to go to when I felt like being on my own. In a small town in the center of America, where I lived back then, we had a steep hill on the outskirts. On its top, an old warehouse stood. No one, even older people, seemed to know who built that warehouse in such an inconvenient place, and what for. Some said smugglers used it during World War II for their own purposes; others told stories about local slaveholders who lived in our town a long time ago—those people were thought to have kept slaves in the old warehouse. For us children, that old wooden shack was a haunted place with a grim, bloody story of love and treason.

None of the townsmen had ever visited the old warehouse. Children were scared and adults did not feel like climbing up the steep slope for no reason. For most of the year, I was its only visitor. With my legs dangling from the attic’s crossbar, usually with an apple in my hand, I watched the sunsets and sunrises, and tiny ants running here and there, and the birds in a nest above my head (for some reason, they were not afraid of me), and the life beneath my outlook point. During such moments, what was meaningful to me was only what I could see, hear, touch, or smell. My school worries, arguments with friends, unrequited first love, and even Mrs. Finch’s cat that I accidentally ran over by my bicycle—all this, as well as many other things—did not exist. And now, when I reminisce about my childhood, I remember the warm golden light, soft shades in the attic, a smell of fresh hay, and the tile rooftops of my town.

Sometimes, as I visited the warehouse, I met other people there. Usually they were vagabonds, staying for a couple of days before moving ahead, or seasonal workers traveling across the entire country further to the west. When this happened, I behaved like a cautious animal, and fortunately I never had problems with them. If they stayed long enough, I would bring them some canned food, and in exchange, they told me their stories, or joked with me. I heard stories of loneliness and long railway trails; unpaid labor and failed marriages; crashed hopes and vehement dreams. In their voices, I could hear the wisdom and the ignorance of the world. They shared their fears, their grief, or their joy with a 13-year-old kid from an American no-name remoteness, knowing he will not spill the beans. Or even if I would (though I never did), still they saw me for the first and last time in their lives.

I believe that old warehouse determined my life. The destinies of other people—perplexed, complicated, but at the same time keen and full of real life—helped me understand myself and the world around me, providing me with answers to issues that worry teenagers. Who am I? Why is everything as it is? Who are the people around me? What should I do? How should I treat others? Those vagabonds, those people, whom people in our town contemptuously called “low-lives,” they taught me things much more valuable than what I could study in vaunted universities.

I still enjoy solitude, when I have a free minute. And, just like in my adolescence, I enjoy the company of unfamiliar random people, who appear in my life for several moments: in an airplane, in train, in a hitch, in a cafe. They tell me their stories and leave—and I carefully write them down….

I am a writer, you know.

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February 5, 2019

Why the Secrets You Keep Are Hurting You

It may not be what you think

By Michael Slepian

Juan Jimenez Getty Images

It hurts to keep secrets. Secrecy is associated with lower well-being, worse health, and less satisfying relationships. Research has linked secrecy to increased anxiety, depression, symptoms of poor health, and even the more rapid progression of disease. There is a seemingly obvious explanation for these harms: Hiding secrets is hard work. You have to watch what you say. If asked about something related to the secret, you must be careful not to slip up. This could require evasion or even deception. Constant vigilance and concealment can be exhausting.

New research , however, suggests that the harm of secrets doesn’t really come from the hiding after all. The real problem with keeping a secret is not that you have to hide it, but that you have to live with it, and think about it.

The concept of secrecy might evoke an image of two people in conversation, with one person actively concealing from the other. Yet, such concealment is actually uncommon. It is far more common to ruminate on our secrets. It is our tendency to mind-wander to our secrets that seems most harmful to well-being. Simply thinking about a secret can make us feel inauthentic. Having a secret return to mind, time and time again, can be tiring. When we think of a secret, it can make us feel isolated and alone.

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To better understand the harms of secrecy, my colleagues and I first set out to understand what secrets people keep, and how often they keep them. We found that 97 percent of people have at least one secret at any given moment, and people have, on average, 13 secrets. A survey of more than 5,000 people found that common secrets include preferences, desires, issues surrounding relationships and sex, cheating, infidelity and violations of others’ trust.

Across several studies, we asked participants to estimate how frequently they concealed their secret during conversations with others, and also how frequently they thought about the secret outside of social interactions. We found that the more frequently people simply thought about their secrets, the lower their well-being. The frequency of active concealment when interacting with others, however, had no relationship to well-being.

Following up this research, a new paper reveals why thinking about secrets is so harmful. Turning the question around, we examined the consequences of confiding secrets. We found that when a person confides a secret to a third party, it does not reduce how often they have to conceal the secret from others who are still kept in the dark. Rather, it reduces how often their mind wanders toward the secret in irrelevant moments.

The act of confiding a secret can feel cathartic and relieving . But mere catharsis is not enough. When confiding a secret, what is actually helpful is the conversation that follows. People report that when sharing a secret with another person, they often receive emotional support, useful guidance, and helpful advice. These forms of support make people feel more confident and capable in coping with the secret. When people find a healthier way of thinking about their secret, they ruminate less on it, and have improved well-being. Our studies suggest that what is important is talking to another person about a secret. A single conversation can lead to a healthier outlook and mind.

This new science of secrecy brings both good and bad news. The bad news is that even when we are not hiding our secrets, they are still very much with us, and can still hurt us. The good news is that even when we choose to still keep something secret, talking to another person can make the world of difference. Secrets don’t have to hurt as much as they do.

Essay on My Hidden Island

I found a special place that’s far away from the noisy world – my hidden island. I stumbled upon it while exploring, and it instantly charmed me.

My journey to this secret island started because I wanted to explore something new. It’s far away from regular tourist spots, and only a few people know about it. My first time there felt like magic. I stepped onto clean, untouched sandy beaches. The island is full of green trees and beautiful plants. There are waterfalls that fall from tall rocks into clear pools, making a nice place to relax. Birds and monkeys make sounds that sound like music while you walk through the jungle.

What makes my secret island special is its natural beauty. The middle part of the island has thick forests with tall trees covered in vines, and lots of different kinds of plants. There are waterfalls with clear water that flow into clean pools where you can swim. Many different animals live here, like colorful birds and playful monkeys. The beaches have soft, white sand, and the ocean water is a bright blue. If you like to dive underwater, you’ll find colorful fish and coral reefs.

The island is not just beautiful, but it’s also home to some people and animals. The people who live here are a small group, and they care a lot about the island’s nature. They make sure it stays clean and healthy. The island is also home to many interesting animals. In the sky, you’ll see colorful birds flying around. On land, there are animals like deer and otters. Under the water, there are sea turtles and lots of fish.

The people who live here have their own unique way of life that’s connected to the island. They love the island and make beautiful things like art, music, and stories inspired by its beauty. They teach their traditions to their children and grandchildren. They live in a way that doesn’t harm the environment, like catching fish, farming, and making things with their hands. They also welcome visitors with open arms, sharing what they know about the island and its wonders.

My hidden island is a secret paradise where nature is everywhere, and the people who live there take care of it. Its untouched beauty, diverse wildlife, and interesting culture make it a place of wonder. As I keep exploring and learning from the people who live there, I’m reminded of how important it is to protect special places like this for the future. My hidden island shows us how nature and people can live together in harmony when they take care of each other.

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Written by Anastasia Melnyk and other people who wish to remain anonymous

The narrator of the story – an unnamed boy of twelve years old – tells about his time in junior high school. Or better to say about the time beyond the school when he and his friend Sergio went to the arroyo, were spending time there by shouting out the things they were forbidden to say at school.

Once they have found a cannonball but did not know what it was. They wanted to take it home, but the narrator knew for sure that his mother would make him throw the thing away. So they decided to bury it. A week later when they came to dig out the strange object they could not find it. They never told about an accident to anyone, but between them two it was an object of conversation all the time.

The narrator describes another instance from their lives when he and Sergio decided to go over the hill and spend their few days. His mother was not against and even helped them to gather necessary things and food. They two started and soon found a perfect place to have a meal. It was green, very bright and the narrator compared it to the Oz country, so bright the green grass was. He and Sergio had a meal there and considered the place paradise. But there appeared two men with strange sticks and shouted on them. Later they found out that those men were golfers and the place was a golf field.

The meaning for all the instances from the lives of Sergio and the narrator is in their friendship, and the two understood different things the same way.

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The Secret Lion Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for The Secret Lion is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

Describe the elements of initiation present in "The Secret Lion". How do the symbols, especially the lion, contribute to our understanding of the protagonist's initation into adolescence and the accompanying loss of innocence?

The “lion” of the title is clearly a symbol—invested with enough meaning to rise to the level of metaphor, really—but it defies being defined as a metaphor precisely because what is it intended to symbolize is murky. Fortunately, the murkiness of...

What does the protagonist learn from the boy's golf course?

One day, the narrator and his friend, Sergio, decided to go over the hill and spend their few days. His mother was not against and even helped them to gather necessary things and food. They two started and soon found a perfect place to have a...

The Secret Lion

This is really asking for your opinion rather than mine. Check out the character link below:

https://www.gradesaver.com/the-secret-lion/study-guide/character-list

Study Guide for The Secret Lion

The Secret Lion study guide contains a biography of Alberto Alvaro Rios, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

• About The Secret Lion
• Character List

Essays for The Secret Lion

The Secret Lion essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of The Secret Lion by Alberto Alvaro Rios.

• Character Analysis of the Protagonist and Sergio in "The Secret Lion"