Tuesday, January 8, 2013

Tuesday Tropes: The Open Secret

 
Carl and Max had a blast, driving around town on a drunken spree. Luckily, no one caught them. Like always, it would be their secret. To Carl's surprise, his boss asked, "how many signs did you run over last night?" How did he know about Carl and Max's weekend ritual?

The Open Secret - Something established as a secret between two or a small group of characters that all other supporting and background characters already know about. This technically doesn't make it a secret at all, but the characters who keep it treat it as such. Let's take Mr. Bond, for example. He's a 00 agent, right? Top secret stuff, and yet, with every single antagonist he meets, they are already aware of this fact ... and they expect him to die. Who spilled the beans?

Such a trope is common in a school setting, where everyone eventually finds out something about you that may not be true. It's hard to have a confrontation with an evil wizard in a school without a fair dose of rumors. Ain't that right, Mr. Potter?

"What happened in the dungeons between you and Quirrell is a complete secret — so, naturally, the whole school knows!"

In the popular manga and anime series, Naruto, there is a law that prohibits everyone from revealing that the demon Fox Spirit is sealed inside his body, meaning everyone but Naruto and younger knows.

"Why do I have a feeling they know something I don't?"

What can be more awkward than a secret love affair? When everyone knows about it. Just ask Lancelot and Guinevere, or Cersei from A Song of Ice and Fire (awkward), or Padmé from The Rise of Darth Vader - I mean, someone had to notice all those "secret" maternity dresses she wore (like the entire galactic senate, for example).

For both dramatic or comedic effect, The Open Secret is a fun trope to play with, but it needs to have a good reason to be out in the open. The characters might have to redefine their secret or take it to the next level and be sure no one finds out the next time - that could be easier said than done.

Ever included an Open Secret in one of your plots? What was it? How did it effect the story and its characters? What's your Open Secret?

I'm David, and having Jeff Daniels for boss would freak me out!


20 comments:

  1. Not a completely open secret. Only a a couple knew of Byron's jumping ability.

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  2. In every book I've written there've been secrets kept from my MCs. There's only one where I'd consider it an "open secret", though. Great trope!

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  3. I like it! I've never written one, but it's a great device... could be a set-up for a lot of humor, I think.

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  4. The book I finished editing featured an open secret of the love affair variety. Though I think "I Know What You Did Last Summer" might be the best example of the trope.

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  5. Great device. I will be more aware of it in my reading and viewing. However, content aside, what I really liked about this post is that Sean Connery's picture was the lead picture on my dashboard. And all the women readers rejoiced.

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  6. I've never thought about it in quite that way. Thanks! I can see how it works now.

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  7. I've never used it . . .but now that you've written such an awesome post about it, I may have to try . . .I like the Naruto example . . .it would be interesting to write something where the MC doesn't know something about himself but everyone else does.
    Thanks for the writing inspiration!

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  8. I've TOTALLY used this! In my current MS, LOL! I love the trope series, DPK. But come on, you should've posted a pic of Daniel Craig! *swoon*

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  9. Love it! That scene at the end was epic!

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  10. If he posted a pic of Daniel Craig, none of us would have read the post!

    I'm not sure I've used this trope, but it's a good one to know. I'll have to think about it.

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  11. I have a secret that's open to the reader but not to all the characters in a book. Does that count as an open secret? I hope there will be more readers than characters in the book so really, it would be fairly open, right?

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  12. You know the whole Bond thing has always bothered me. Why does everyone always already know about James Bond? And why do they always give him identity papers for him to just always introduce himself as Bond, James Bond. Of course, the idea has always been that Bond was just his code name, but, then, this latest movie says, "No, that's actually his real name." What the heck?

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  13. The secret tat everyone in the book knows about but the reader doesn't is always fun. Hard to pull off though, and when it goes wrong, it goes way wrong.

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  14. I've never used this - but I can see how it would create good tension for an MC who's the only one who doesn't know something. Probably the reader shouldn't know either though, or it would be easy to foretell the end!

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  15. This could be an interesting plot ploy that I hadn't thought of in exactly this way. Thanks for the tip.

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  16. I never thought about as being a ploy used in plots. Now I'm thinking of all the TV programs I watch and whether they use them.

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  17. Oh, so love to learn something new. This is great!

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  18. Not sure if it counts, I've written a series of flashfiction featuring a character from my WIP and had to hide it from readers. Everyone in the flashfics knows his secret and doesn't make a fuss about it, but in the WIP no one knows.

    The Naruto version sounds fun. Enjoying the trope series very much :)

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  19. I don't think I've done one where everyone else knows, but I've definitely had more people clued in than the characters thought.

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  20. Oh, and by the way, I got the cupcakes. Thanks!

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