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Apr 2024

Does your characters keep secrets, or have they told lies, maybe even to their friends and loved ones?

How do they justify these lies in their own heads? It's interesting to think about, even if you never hear the justifications they've made for these things.

For the most part, Alicia hasn't lied to anyone except for the classic "i'm fine" but she has kept a lot of secrets. She didn't tell her little brother what was going on when she realized that their mother was on drugs, she also didn't tell him about the car accident, about her horrible breakup, etc. She loves her little brother to death, so in her mind, it was best to protect him from all these things that would devastate him, even if that meant basically cutting him out of huge portions of her life.

The whole of "Damsel in the Red Dress" is one big secret on Kattar's part, and there are a lot of other secrets Alicia kept from Mrs. Moon and such. Actually everybody's been keeping a lot of secrets from each other. Not a very healthy way for people to live.


“Mrs. Moon…” I whisper, my heart pounding like a death toll.

“Hmm, darling?” She smiles without looking over, flipping the mirror back into place.

“I-”

No - don’t!

Please don’t! Alicia-!!!

She’ll never call you “Licia,” again.

She’ll never call you “darling.” Never call you to ask about your paintings, or your holiday plans when she knows-

There’s a flash like the moment before a light bulb blows - a fraction of a smile before it evaporates into anxious paralyzed worry.

“Um…Lise…” he starts to say, but the words trail off, and he stares at me, mouth open but speechless.

“What?” I ask, feeling my heart sink into my stomach, “What’s wrong?”

“N-nothing…just,” he tries to smile but fails. There’s a moment before he can make himself start again, and when he does his tone worries me.“I don’t - I don’t mind if you tell anybody else that we’re…anything but…”

He stares at the blankets like he’s trying to burn a hole in the endless white - almost trembling - then he shakes his head quickly like he’s trying to wake from a bad dream.

“But whatever you do, please don’t tell my mom. Please. ”

As for "Hushabye Prince" well, there are secrets there too, but that's a secret I can't share lol.

I will say that Jinny's mom doesn't know he can get to the beer.

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    Mar '24
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    Oct '24
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Kid is a little too stupid to lie, but he could easily lie by omission if needed. Hugo probably inflates his achievements and most things he says are just to get the reaction he wants from people. Unfortunately, the only people actively lying a lot or in a more meaningful way, haven’t been introduced yet =P

My comics so full of lies and secrets it drives the storyline. Everything from what the main character (Baul) is to the motivations of the factions. Letting these secrets come to the front of the story is the point.

Lol, that's why I couldn't share the one's in "Hushabye Prince"

Dreamseer is the story with the most secrets and lies. Most of them from Aster just because he knows more than anyone else thanks to his dreams. He lies about why he needs to marry Calixtus and about who he is at the very start. Then he keeps his ability to see visions of the future through his dreams a secret until he trusts Calixtus. The biggest secret he keeps is that he'll be murdered in six months. Still hasn't come clean about that, lol. There's a bunch of other little lies and secrets he keeps, mostly because he's not used to being honest but also because he thinks it's better for others to not be so involved with him for their own safety.

Pretty much every character in my story harbors some sort of secret.

Well, particularly my 2nd favorite character in Sky Diver is canonically a "man of many mysteries" - an enigma that doesn't necessarily need to be lying, but there's a bunch of stuff he's not outright telling, which - depending on how you look at it - can, however, be considered lying sometimes.
In non-spoilery terms, Shadedancer holds many secrets to himself or his closest allies. Most of them include a bunch of hidden knowledge about people and overall lore (as it befits most mentor characters) and his actual name.


As for very mild spoilers, which will explain the character more a few more chapters down the road

Despite of the role he is seemingly playing, Shadedancer is not one of the bad guys. It's the whole opposite, actually, and also quite the sad tale.
He does make questionable decisions and acts quite shady for sure, fully aware of which skeletons he has to put in his closet to reach his own goal, but he genuinely cares about the people around him. And that's the one thing that makes him act a certain way towards them. He tries to form bonds, be it for information or help for his cause, but does not want to get too close to people because he's fully aware of what happens to those who get too closely affiliated with him.
To sum it up a little, the man has witnessed a lot in his life prior to the events of the story currently playing out.

The whole scope of his backstory, which gets revealed here and there even after Part I, is also one that makes him the most complex character in the whole project, as the events of his life before meeting Josi all solidified the role he has to play in all of this to reach this very important goal.

14 days later

I think this is the case for almost everyone on earth. Dicken's has a quote about it, that I then referenced in my novel lol

Wild Nights, Hot and Crazy Days is a coming of age/coming out story, so the MC (me) was keeping a big secret right up until the end, when he came out

In Finding Daecon’s Way Daecon finds out that his entire childhood was a lie, so there are some big secrets there, too

Finding out your childhood was a lie is an existential crisis in the making.

Especially when you find out that a big part of that lie was being raised as a human when you’re not.

Yeah, quite seriously, so many people have parts of their childhoods they have to unwrite.

My character Kattar has to unwrite so much of what his mother taught him, because he's basically been raised to believe that men are by nature a waste of time, and it's only because she's made him her special project that he's not and he has to fight very hard to not fall into the category she places all other men in. Also that his emotions are a waste of time. He's basically never had a childhood for that reason because she refused to 'baby' him.

Meanwhile Alicia has been keeping parts of their childhood out of her little brother's knowledge to try to 'protect' him but those are the "white lies made of silence" that make everything worse.

Bit early, and still very vague on backstories(where most secrets are kept), but I'll give some vague hints without revealing who has which secret.

-someone knows how to fight - like been in training.
-someone is adopted, but they themselves don't know.
-someone is a spy.
-someone is a god (beside me, lol).

Each "someone" is a different character that you've seen(this includes the chickens too).
Yeah, I got a lotta dumb drama planned for future arcs. It's gonna be great!

XD, like an actual god, or more chicken worshipping people stuff?

An actual god, based on real mythology.
If I manage to make more series, he'll be the guy who ties all my BS multiverses together.

lol, I have a few series I intend to tie together, but in much more subtle ways, just because they exist in similar areas. most of my American stories are set in Maryland, so they can have easter eggs with each other

26 days later

Rigamarole is almost literally all about lying and keeping secrets. The primary one being that the FL, Leia, is trying to keep anyone from finding out her little brother's secret, and lying a whole lot to cover it up.

(this is free for anyone to read on my public posts.)

Hunter and hunted, predator and prey, human vs vampires, what will it take to tip the balance in either side's favor?
An heir, a pair, and a brother disappeared.
Human blood fuels a vampire's life and vampire lives fuel human savagery.

A secret that must be hidden in plain sight

lol, sometimes the secrets are known to the readers and just not to others.

Secrets abound in "Lyra's Magnum Opus". Tetsu is keeping the fact that he is bisexual and non-binary from everyone in his life. The whole series is about his journey to reveal it on his own terms and becoming comfortable with these things himself. He is semi-famous in the book's world as a musician and dancer from the start, so he's also keeping it from the world. Sana's band, Lyra, has long kept secret from the music industry that Sana (their singer) has a degenerative illness that is later revealed to be terminal in actual fact, which is the other shoe dropping that most of the band didn't even know. The whole series is about Sana revealing this on his own terms to their fans and the whole world as the band becomes more famous due to their unique situation and new association with Tetsu who is already famous as the drag queen Aurelia. It is also kept secret for a while that Tetsu and Sana are together, and Tetsu gets fired from his management company for being queer due to them finding out about this relationship pretty early on. The slow reveal that Tetsu and Sana are dating and then married is also a major theme in the book (it kinda gets more cute, though, this particular secret, as their mutual fans adore them both as they watch their journey).

Sana kept his disease a secret from his band mates? I can understand not wanting everyone to know, but it's still gotta be hard on them. What's the disease?

*breaks out into a cold sweat * Oof, every character in Apparent Secrets is keeping something from someone. Whether it's "I've been in love with you for months" to "I'm secretly hiding three aliens in my apartment," EVERYONE has something to hide. :joy: I think it's fun to tease out each persons' secrets and lies as we go along. The longer you read, the more dirt you dig up on everyone. :wink:

lol. I think most real people have at least a few things they keep secret from at least a few people, so that's pretty realistic and reasonable...except maybe the part about hiding aliens

Wait, other people aren't hiding aliens from other worlds?
*nervous panic ensues * :joy:

I may have a few characters hiding or harboring aliens lol. Some are unaware they are aliens. I also have an alien trying to hide a human from her parents, because they aren't supposed to be friends

5 out of 6 of my characters are magic based which is a secret they keep from the average world. HOWEVER all of them have deeper secrets that they are keeping from each other (and maybe themselves). BUT SAYING WHAT THAT IS IS A SPOILER-

(The reason I made this piece was because of all the s e c r e t s)

22 days later
12 days later

I forgot, but I guess I should have realized, the entire way Essence lives her life is sort of a lie, or at least a false front. She is trying very hard to seem as "normal" as possible to keep people from being made uncomfortable by how little she is like most other people.

25 days later
20 days later
20 days later

Aye, this is pretty true of my leads too. Not quite magic, but they are fantasy creatures in the modern world and trying to hide it

That's like my whole comic series haha it's literally titled "The Secrets We Keep" XD
Main secret in the story is that the main character is mixed with two celestial bloodlines- this is important because no child born of both bloodlines survives past the age of seven. She has to keep it a secret or the King will kill her. The second is that she is possessed by a full Celestial Demon.

19 days later