Secrets and Storytelling

Thanks to StoryDam for suggesting this prompt!

I was a lousy secret-keeper as a child. One, because public television taught me that lying was bad and that keeping secrets often made people feel hurt. Two because I was a terrible liar. So unfortunately, I have no memory of what my first secret was, the one that I was actually able to keep into my adulthood.

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That said, while I couldn't keep secrets, others were good at keeping secrets from ME. For example, when my dad was sick from cancer, no one mentioned the C-word in my presence. They merely told me that he had stomach pains, and he said that he would get better in September. 

In August of that year, my dad died from non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. I only learned later that he had received cancer, and that my family had not disclosed that information to protect ten-year old me. No one could have anticipated the anger I felt that year in addition to grief, at the feeling of having been deceived.

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A word to parents out there: don't be afraid to talk about cancer with your little ones if they're old enough to understand. Ten-year olds are old enough, and they'd rather know when to say goodbye than to have their dads drop dead suddenly. 

I only learned to keep secrets in college, which I attended eight years after my dad died. They're rather like holding in little buzzing stones that vibrate when you hide them. But they can stay unsaid, buried for long periods of time. 

How can a writer use secrets, especially if a writer has had experience of being a bad liar? Quite simply, to build and destroy relationships between characters. When I think of the year my dad died, I think of a book we read called The Giver. The Giver features a world where people don't lie, everyone has their place, and war has ended. At least, people don't lie in theory; the protagonist Jonas receives permission to lie when he is apprenticed to the titular character. 

Secrets destroy Jonas's relationship with his friends and family, though not for lack of trying. He has to remember events from the past that his best friends cannot comprehend, such as war and colors, and explain why they become meaningful in a gray world with dull-colored grass. He cannot convince his little sister that elephants were larger creatures than her stuffed toy, or ask his parents if they love him. His training isolates him, as he has to keep these secrets from people who cannot understand. Jonas finally gives up when he finds out what his father as a caregiver does to unfortunate babies.

Jonas has learned to feel anger and grief in a world without true feelings, and Lois Lowry only reveals his father's and the society's secret when Jonas can weep, rage, and condemn. He soon has to keep secrets of his own to change society for the better, and to rescue his baby brother. Although he grows as a person, his decision to change means sacrificing his old life and hurting everyone around him.

Honesty is dangerous in real life. When we tell the truth, others take advantage of us, or mock us into keeping our desires secret. In books, however, honesty and secrets have the potential to battle out and build a stronger character, one who will make sacrifices and know when to lie or withhold information. That is how we can use sealed lips when crafting stories.