Secrets and Mysteries

[ex_truepenn]

CAIN: Are you looking for a mystery or a secret?
ABBY: I ... I don't know. Is there a difference?
CAIN: Of COURSE there's a difference! Mysteries are wonders that you can ponder and share. Secrets are a burden to carry ALONE!

--Swamp Thing 33, "Abandoned Houses"
(collected in Swamp Thing: Love and Death)

A secret is something the reader is not

Comments

[ckd]

To return to one of the authors whose works have been referred to already in the post: Orca.

That's a secret that caused me to re-read not only that book, but several other books, with the reveal in mind. (Also known as the "holy crap, that just turned my brain inside out" moment.)

[alecaustin]

Hrm. I guess my question would be: In addition to turning your brain inside out, did the secret make sense? Was it emotionally consistent with previous events in the series? Did the secret's revelation add anything to those previous books?

It seems to me that there might be a class of secret in between the albatross-around-the-story's-neck and the unresolved mystery, which isn't hinted at like the mystery would be, but is hiding in plain sight, or at least in the interstices of the setting or character relationships. The audience has no reason to know that it's there, but the author isn't cheating them, either: It's just not something that's come up yet, and its revelation can be powerful without being cheap.

Thoughts?

[dsgood]

While the secret in Agyar is never stated explicitly, most readers will figure it out. (By "most," I mean the same percentage as can figure out how a Barbara Cartland novel will end.)

[oursin]

And there can be massive sense of anticlimax when Dread Secret that has driven plot is finally revealed, and reader goes 'Is that it?'

[ex_truepenn]

Yes.

That's the other problem with secrets. Their worthiness tends to be more than a little subjective. Ignore the man behind the curtain!