No matter how thoroughly we study them, animals continue to mystify. We like to imagine their secrets, which they may never allow us to know, even if they can one day communicate them to us. Many species of animals have yet to be discovered; who knows what fascinating behaviors and abilities they might have?
SITUATION 1: Weird catlike creatures fill the forests of this magic land; the rebellious princess, tired of being cooped up in the castle, sneaks out with the help of a guard. She ventures into the forest and spies on one of the creatures, one that is intent on sharing its secrets with her.
SITUATION 2: Who would have guessed that frogs harbor strange secrets and that people can figure out what they are, if only they listen carefully enough to their croaking? That is exactly what a precocious girl is able to do. But the frogs warn her: You must not share these secrets with anyone else.
SITUATION 3: Lizard-like creatures that seem to possess humanoid traits have been stalking villages, managing to escape whenever the residents lay traps for them. But one villager discovers the cave from which they emerge and dares to venture inside.
SITUATION 4: An artificial sphere, a hundred meters in diameter, has been found partially buried in the desert; scientists discover that it contains creatures with characteristics that are both alien and familiar. They suspect that the sphere has been transported from the distant future—for reasons they hope to discover.
SITUATION 5: A curious young boy discovers a long-lost entrance to a world in which fearsome creatures have been exiled. All of the creatures harbor terrible secrets about the world they came from—secrets that the boy suspects have to do with wealth and magic. He must win their trust before they will divulge their secrets.
SITUATION 6: Giraffes are full of secrets, which a zoologist discovers. She has spent her professional life studying them but only recently found that giraffes share their secrets under special circumstances and in unusual ways. These secrets begin to affect her personal life in dramatic ways, some good and some bad.
SITUATION 7: While exploring a lake deep beneath the Arctic polar cap, scientists encounter a fishlike animal no one has seen before. While examining it in the lab, it begins to communicate with them with strange sounds.
SITUATION 8: When a sickly child sneaks out of the house one summer day, he is startled to discover that birds fly toward him and share their secrets in a bird language he can understand. Some of the secrets help him find ways to improve his condition, and some get him in trouble. Meanwhile a psychologist insists that he should be “cured” of this delusion.
SITUATION 9: A rare sea creature washes ashore, barely alive. When a child finds it, she is about to toss it back into the water when, in a faint voice, it speaks to her. It tells her an amazing secret about an enchanting undersea domain that must be rescued before it disappears forever.
SITUATION 10: Conscious her ability to establish mind links with animals, a teenager visits the zoo. There the animals share their secret thoughts with her. Many are unhappy. When one of the animals realizes her talent, it tries to persuade her to set it and its kind free.
Those who research their family histories are often surprised—pleasantly or unpleasantly—by some of the long-forgotten activities of their ancestors, and the farther back they search, the more eye-opening the surprises, in many cases. Secrets, after all, are destined to be revealed eventually. Such intrigue spanning many generations makes for fine story material.
SITUATION 1: When a teacher uncovers a diary kept by her grandmother, she is shocked to discover that her mother’s real father was a Nazi guard who had raped her. Moreover, the Nazi is still alive in a German prison.
SITUATION 2: While cleaning his attic, an elderly man stumbles upon a trunk that belonged to his great-grandfather. When he opens it, he is shocked to discover documents that tie his ancestors to a crime that has never been solved.
SITUATION 3: Following a string of career failures, the protagonist falls into deep depression, but then he discovers a journal kept by his deceased father who described a similar crisis in his life—which ended when he found a hidden talent, one his son has in abundance.
SITUATION 4: The head of a prosperous aristocratic family is being haunted by the ghosts of his ancestors. They claim the family prosperity was gained by the suffering of others—and it’s time to pay the piper.
SITUATION 5: For the past decade, a once-prosperous family has been suffering one misfortune after another. The family’s matriarch discovers the dark secret: Her father had swindled a business partner, a sorcerer who cursed the family. Now the matriarch is determined to do whatever it takes to break the curse.
SITUATION 6: Seeking to uncover the dark secrets her ancestors were alleged to have harbored, a writer returns to her ancestral Asian village and indeed uncovers more secrets than she bargained for. Some of them are too disturbing to write about.
SITUATION 7: A priest exploring his genealogy discovers that his grandfather worked for a family involved in organized crime and he committed a terrible misdeed for which he served a prison sentence. The secret had been hidden so that his family could maintain their sterling reputation. The priest wants to void that false reputation—but his family warns him not to.
SITUATION 8: While abroad, an art historian chances upon a portrait that resembles himself. He discovers to his amazement that he has an ancestral link to the painter and that the identity of the individual in the painting has been kept secret.
SITUATION 9: The descendant of a highly regarded political leader claims to have uncovered documents that link the leader to a terrorist group that once plotted a military coup in his own country years earlier. After announcing that claim, she receives a death threat and must go into exile.
SITUATION 10: When a homeless woman learns that her great-grandfather had been an activist in community service, creating homeless shelters, etc., she embarks on a personal mission to improve her life by following his example.
Every family has its secrets—some trivial, some not. Some secrets are partially known, but others are so deeply buried they don’t surface for generations. The longer secrets are kept, the likelier it is that they will be leaked confessed, or stumbled upon. The story possibilities are many.
SITUATION 1: Long isolated from mainstream society, a mountain-dwelling family holds secrets only whispered about in a nearby village, but now a detective has stumbled upon a crime report describing one of the senior family members as a suspect in a murder—an unsolved crime the protagonist thinks he can solve.
SITUATION 2: The narrator assumed her boyfriend was trustworthy, especially since he is heavily active in the community and local organizations, but when her boyfriend’s long-estranged brother moves back to town, her boyfriend confesses that he secretly hurt his brother’s chances at winning an athletic competition out of jealousy and fears his brother knows about it, thus his return years later.
SITUATION 3: Bullied by older siblings, a reclusive teen retreats to his hiding place with friends he conjures up with incantations. They get along beautifully, but these friends are magical beings with dangerous powers.
SITUATION 4: A Sioux activist learns that his father, who long ago abandoned the family, was a crook who robbed Native-American charities. Furious, he seeks revenge on his father, but when he finds him, he has second thoughts.
SITUATION 5: A venture capitalist sneaks into the office of her ex-boyfriend (an engineer) to extract classified technical information. Her plan is to use the information in a lucrative project as a way of exacting vengeance on him for past abuses.
SITUATION 6: Consumed by guilt for years because of the unjust way he treated his brother (thereby causing the brother to suffer a string of misfortunes), the narrator reveals his secret and vows to make up for the injustice—but his brother refuses to forgive him and may even seek revenge.
SITUATION 7: After winning the lottery, a recently married man hides the fact from his wife and uses the money to fulfill his playboy fantasy. Soon the fantasy turns into a nightmare and he returns home, but his wife is gone.
SITUATION 8: Every Halloween a woman dons a witch’s costume and puts neighbors and family members under one innocuous spell or another. No one realizes she really is a witch until a friend angers her and she casts a malignant spell over him.
SITUATION 9: Peaceful on the surface, a veteran secretly struggles against paranoia, but he continues to amass an arsenal of illegal firearms and explosives. When his wife discovers them, she is torn between confronting him and reporting him to the police.
SITUATION 10: A boy picks the lock on his mother’s dresser drawer and discovers a hoard of wallets: His mother is a pickpocket. Afraid to confront her, he contacts the owners of the wallets—and that is when problems really unfold.
Letters from anonymous recipients arouse curiosity ... and suspicion. Sometimes the writers want to keep their identity a secret for good reasons, but sometimes they do so for malicious reasons, too. Whatever the motives, gripping tales can be fashioned. Here are ten scenarios with this premise for you to develop.
SITUATION 1: Unable to bring himself to admit his love for the girl he has been enchanted with since eighth grade, a high-school student writes her secret love letters and asks her to keep them secret. Instead she posts and ridicules the “anonymous” letters on social-media sites, knowing that clues in the letters hint at the writer’s identity.
SITUATION 2: Someone is sending letters to a college student, rich in insights into the human heart. The letters are typed, unsigned, and slipped under her door. She confronts possible candidates (professors, old boyfriends) but is still baffled.
SITUATION 3: A journalist receives a threatening letter ordering her to appear at a certain place at a certain time. She obeys, only to be handed another letter by a courier to appear elsewhere. This continues until the sender reveals himself: a hired assassin.
SITUATION 4: Incarcerated for his seditious views, a teacher in a country ruled by a despot smuggles messages to his sister in the United States, urging her to publicize his views regarding intellectual freedom. When the letters stop coming, she fears for his life and seeks the State Department’s help to rescue him.
SITUATION 5: When a piano prodigy’s mother discovers that her daughter has been receiving letters from a secret admirer, she demands to see them; when the girl refuses, the mother finds the letters and discovers that they contain musical compositions.
SITUATION 6: A refugee receives letters from a mysterious sender, urging her to return to her homeland at once, for only she can prevent the country’s imminent invasion by an evil force. Despite weeks of investigation, she cannot find evidence that the sender or the country exists. Then one day, the sender shows up on her doorstep.
SITUATION 7: Faced with legal battles, the collapse of his marriage, and financial ruin, an executive receives a secret letter claiming to be from his future self, who explains what he must do. He assumes that the letter is a hoax. Then one day his future self shows up.
SITUATION 8: After opening a portal to an alternate universe, a physicist receives amorous letters from a woman in that universe. She pleads with him to visit her, if he doesn’t, she will seal the portal.
SITUATION 9: An abused child finds a letter under the covers of his bed, inviting him to a magical place. The letter is written in calligraphy, and the writer claims to be an exiled magician who needs the child’s help to return to his kingdom.
SITUATION 10: To express his love for a fellow sixth grader, a precocious but shy boy secretly pens passionate letters to her. When his teacher intercepts one, she fears that an adult, not a student, is writing them to the girl—and implicates a teacher she has always disliked.
Stories in which a vital secret mission is planned and carried out virtually ensures edge-of-seat reading, provided that the odds are formidable, the hero is clever but not invincible, the suspense is sustained, and the goal is cleverly achieved. Any of the following ten situations should get you into suspense-writing mode.
SITUATION 1: An executive (and secret agent) and her husband are in South Korea for a conference when she vanishes during a reception. It turns out that she flew to North Korea on a classified mission. When she doesn’t return, her husband is approached to help find her.
SITUATION 2: The narrator and another soldier infiltrate a secret encampment where the enemy is conducting misinformation transmissions. But separating accurate information from false information proves to be a tougher challenge than anticipated, and their time in the camp is running out.
SITUATION 3: An influential inventor believes God is calling her to reverse a destructive trend in technology, so she launches an aggressive environmental movement. When she admits that God has called her to this mission, many lose trust in her.
SITUATION 4: After learning that an enemy nation has constructed a base on the moon that will soon house a nuclear warhead, the Pentagon plans a secret mission using retired astronauts to stop or destroy the shipment.
SITUATION 5: Despairing in his cell, a prisoner hears the voice of God commanding him to study painting. A week into his art lessons, he is seized by incredible visions, which he tries to capture in his paintings. The warden, however, misinterprets the paintings and takes away his painting privileges.
SITUATION 6: Although the Pentagon reported that drone strikes would target a terrorist holdout, the actual target was kept secret and was far more controversial. However, a Pentagon official, who is personally against drone strikes, decides to leak the secret.
SITUATION 7: Acting on a calling from God he received in a dream, a priest embarks on a mission to change the Church’s attitude toward celibacy among priests. Although he has much support, he also receives threats on his life.
SITUATION 8: After an accident causes him to lose his voice, a singer is called by an angel to devote himself to helping those whose careers have been cut short by accidents. “Do this for a year,” the angel promises, “and I will return your voice to its original quality.” The only condition is that he must keep his angelic calling a secret. Alas, the temptation to share his encounter with the angel proves too great, and he tells others.
SITUATION 9: Despite a command from the president to stop spying on a close ally’s leader, CIA agents suspect that the ally is involved in anti-U.S. operations, and resume spying. If the ally were to discover this revocation of the pledge, war would become imminent. A diplomat from that nation becomes aware of the new activity and decides to blackmail the CIA.
SITUATION 10: An athlete with a secret drug addiction heeds a calling to quit drugs and redeem herself on the tennis court. Because she wishes to keep her past addiction private, she must find a way to get completely clean in time for the tournament she wants to enter.
Secret organizations, clubs, or societies exist to recruit those who are faithful to a given cause or who possess a shared talent. While enveloped in mystery, most of these organizations are benevolent, but some are not—and are therefore ideal sources for stories.
SITUATION 1: Difficult as it has been, dissenters from a cruel regime form a secret society dedicated to doing all they can to overthrow the dictator. They build a haven underground and conduct raids in the dead of night, but then one of them is caught.
SITUATION 2: When she learns about a secret coven of witches, a woman who was cast out of her village because of her magical powers joins the coven. But these witches are sinister and threaten to corrupt the woman, who had intended to use her powers to help people.
SITUATION 3: Shrouded in mystery, a secret organization recruits only those in the community who possess a certain talent—but nobody knows what that talent is. Once a member, individuals are sworn to secrecy. One recruit breaks the vow and soon regrets it.
SITUATION 4: Highly trained saboteurs are hired by various groups to sabotage equipment used in deforestation, warfare, etc. They vow never to reveal who hired them if they’re caught—but that proves easier said than done.
SITUATION 5: Posing as talent scouts, members of a secret organization canvass neighborhoods in search of people possessing particular skills, such as photographic memory. But instead of awarding scholarships as they claim to do, they recruit the selectees for unseemly tasks.
SITUATION 6: During the day, residents of this town adhere to a traditional lifestyle, but at night, many of them become participants in a demonic organization that threatens all who stray from "the path of righteousness.”
SITUATION 7: Children new to this neighborhood are invited to join a secret club that meets in a tree house. At first the newest recruit is excited about the club and its secrecy, but then the club’s leader reveals sinister occult intentions.
SITUATION 8: Renegade teachers form a secret organization devoted to developing innovative school curricula that include often-cut programs such as music, visual arts, and theater, as well as small classes and minimal use of standardized tests. When word of the organization is leaked, heads roll.
SITUATION 9: Members of a hunting club have formed a secret subsidiary group intent on lifting all restrictions on firearms. More radical than the National Rifle Association, they threaten anti-gun lobbyists and legislators who have pushed for restrictions of any kind. An advocate of gun control learns of their existence and dares to confront them.
SITUATION 10: People no longer dare to abuse their pets in this community, where a secret organization of animal protectors has been rounding up abusers and giving them a taste of their own medicine. The only problem is that there is no consensus on where to draw the line between “abuse” and “discipline.”
Keeping a large project secret has always been difficult. The Manhattan Project, perhaps, was one of the great success stories, but in the age of WikiLeaks, even maintaining military secrecy would be an amazing achievement—a fact of modern life that allows for even more suspenseful tales!
SITUATION 1: When genetically modified crops are rejected by the Department of Agriculture, the farmers who were hoping for clearance secretly plant the crops anyway. When consumers begin suffering from health problems and the project is blamed, a journalist discovers that other factors could be the cause.
SITUATION 2: Your mission, if you decide to accept it: Gain access to the most carefully guarded secret project in history where, according to a defector from this enemy nation, construction of a time machine is taking place.
SITUATION 3: Physicists have been secretly working on a matter-transport device. When the project is leaked, corporations compete for access to the schematics, despite the possibility that the whole scheme is a hoax.
SITUATION 4: Known for her extraordinary programming skills, the protagonist becomes part of a secret government anti-cyberterrorism project. She is doubly challenged when she discovers that at least one cyberterrorist is actually part of the project.
SITUATION 5: Neuroscientists embark on a secret project to enhance human memory. They believe that powerful, accurate memory will revolutionize civilization. When word is leaked, other scientists want to sabotage the project because they fear it would do more harm than good.
SITUATION 6: A research group secretly experiments with creating human-animal hybrid cells in an effort to create a vaccine against deadly viruses. When one of the researchers worries that the project leader has gone too far, she blows the whistle.
SITUATION 7: Led by a visionary (but mentally unstable) robotics expert, a maverick group of engineers launches a secret project to build a self-replicating robot. When one of the prototype robots goes out of control, some members of the team want to shut down the project.
SITUATION 8: The narrator is intent on founding a new religion based on the teachings of a mystic who has been transmitting his ecstatic visions into psychedelic videos and growing more popular every day. The only problem is that the mystic is also severely schizophrenic.
SITUATION 9: In the middle of a top-secret project to neutralize the effects of the poison gas used in chemical weapons, the project supervisor is abducted by militant extremists who threaten to kill the supervisor if the project is not abandoned. The supervisor is soon rescued but not by who he expects.
SITUATION 10: Residents are baffled by night crews assembling just outside their town and working until dawn on ... what? Everything is hush-hush, until an intrepid reporter sneaks past the security perimeter to discover the secret project: a machine that can open a window to a parallel Earth.
Spiritual needs are forces to be reckoned with, and counterforces, even whole empires, run the risk of destruction if they interfere with people’s need to worship. Stories about the struggle to worship, even if that struggle must be kept secret, make for compelling tales.
SITUATION 1: At first mystified by a cache of ancient Egyptian funereal artifacts she finds in her deceased grandfather’s attic, the narrator uncovers long-hidden secrets about her grandparents and their involvement with a group that appears long defunct ... or is it?
SITUATION 2: Forbidden by the emperor to worship her gods in public, the protagonist and her followers erect a shrine in the forest. There they worship powerful pagan gods who promise their followers protection. But the emperor learns of the secret shrine and sets out to destroy it.
SITUATION 3: Two siblings uncover an incantation buried in their grandparents’ trunk, along with a warning that it must never be used. Neither must it be destroyed—which is why their grandparents kept it. But because of recent misfortunes, the siblings utter the incantation, hoping it will bring good luck.
SITUATION 4: While playing a witch onstage, a young actress performs a ritual, as the script directs, but the mayhem that follows was not in the script. As a consequence, everyone suspects that she is a real witch.
SITUATION 5: The moment she begins examining the inscriptions on a rune stone at the recently excavated Druid site, an anthropologist finds herself under the power of a spell—one that produces vivid visions of ancient Druidic rituals. Is she being transported back in time to when these Druids lived?
SITUATION 6: Volunteers in a third-world country get involved with a tribe that engages in secret rituals as a means of gaining the basics they need to subsist. Not only do they refuse the aid of the volunteers; they hold the volunteers captive as sacrifices to appease the gods.
SITUATION 7: In ancient Delphi, priests and poets visit the oracles of Apollo or of Zeus, who bestow them with prophecies and inspiration. How did the oracles receive their visions? That is the mystery an investigative journalist intends to find out.
SITUATION 8: Children make up nonsensical incantations, but one day, while pretending to trap a kid in a force field, the incantation actually works. Now they must figure out how to undo the spell.
SITUATION 9: To put an end to the drought that is threatening her realm, the queen consults a seer to perform the appropriate ritual, but the only ritual that can end the drought, according to the seer, is one in which the queen must return half of her realm to a sworn enemy.
SITUATION 10: A woman believes that spiritual rebirth is possible through a series of water rituals—not just baptism but invocations of ancient water deities, the recitation of poetry, and the singing of hymns about the healing power of water. The rituals are to be performed in the nude—which is why the woman and her friends are arrested. However, the rituals seem to work.
Many secrets of vanished or vanquished peoples lie buried throughout the world, waiting for archaeologists, anthropologists, and forensic experts to reconstruct and record their stories. History is continually revised as a result of such discoveries. And of course, there are also alternate universes that writers can “discover” and populate with civilizations of their own imagining.
SITUATION 1: For centuries, the ruined mountain kingdom lay buried in an avalanche of rubble. Then one day, a subject of the current monarch discovers evidence of a way into the fortress, that it had become a sequestered city of enchantment—and that descendants of its sorcerers may still exist.
SITUATION 2: Archaeologists uncover a secret burial site belonging to a pre-Columbian tribe of Indians. The burial chambers contain skeletons, artwork, and relics that gradually paint a picture of a catastrophic event that might repeat itself.
SITUATION 3: Peaceful and picturesque, ruled by a benevolent monarch, this kingdom seems idyllic ... until the protagonist stumbles upon a clue that leads her to the location of a chest filled with secrets about the kingdom’s not-so-idyllic past.
SITUATION 4: A slave has been taught to read and write by the slave owner’s daughter. In his secret journal, he describes the owner’s illegal business transactions. After he escapes, he tries to get the owner arrested before he hurts his daughter for having educated him.
SITUATION 5: After being driven from their homeland, several pagans create a utopian community in a remote mountainous region. Ages pass, and the descendants of those who exiled the pagans rediscover them, along with the pagans’ strange secrets that have given them unique powers of persuasion.
SITUATION 6: Human descendants on Mars are the custodians of humanity’s legacy on a now-ravaged Earth. But each of the several Martian colonies holds only a piece of the whole, and the protagonist wants to reconstruct the whole picture, especially the technological piece, which is most elusive.
SITUATION 7: The inhabitants of a remote volcanic island have survived not just by farming intelligently but by securing favors from the gods through ancient secret rituals—that is, until now. They have not properly appeased the volcano godess Pele, and now there will be hell to pay.
SITUATION 8: What was keeping the inhabitants of a subarctic wilderness from aging? An anthropologist visits the community, intent on learning the secret. She discovers that the inhabitants follow bizarre dietary and lifestyle habits.
SITUATION 9: Clio, the Muse of history, appears before two intellectually curious siblings who are both artists, and she shows them unknown facets of history in order to inspire new works. But she shows too much, and some of these facets are disturbing, even terrifying. The sibling artists aim to tell the world about these secrets, and Clio now worries that these facts might do more harm than good.
SITUATION 10: To gain entrance into the Secret City, children must memorize a large quantity of information about astronomy, physics, mythology, and art. Those who pass the test become part of a society in which both memory and imagination are paramount.
There’s something intriguing about children and old people harboring secrets. From children we may expect secrets having to do with magical places or other inexplicable discoveries; with the elderly, long-suppressed desires or family transgressions are more common.
SITUATION 1: In the dead of night, a knock on the door reveals an old woman who tells the man who answers that she is a close friend of his grandparents. She also says that she has a terrible secret she must share about his family.
SITUATION 2: A deaf-mute since his early childhood, a young man returns from a journey with his hearing restored, but he keeps this fact to himself. Because others assume he is still deaf, he learns many secrets in his hometown and overhears a plot to swindle an elderly family member out of her wealth. He operates carefully not only to destroy the plot but to keep his own secret intact.
SITUATION 3: On her deathbed, the grandmother of a dysfunctional family whispers a secret in her granddaughter’s ear—a secret about certain family members that will cause the granddaughter and another sibling to fear for their lives.
SITUATION 4: When asked how he managed to reach his extremely advanced age, the still-robust centenarian gave the usual reasons—no tobacco or drugs, lots of vegetables, etc.—but a reporter who digs deeper into the man’s life suspects a dark secret, a supernatural one.
SITUATION 5: A mischievous boy who sneaks into neighbors’ yards overhears several teens plotting to “shoot up” a local school. When he tells school officials what he overheard, they don’t believe him because he’d been caught telling lies before.
SITUATION 6: Even though he swears to keep his older brother’s theft a secret, the protagonist cannot resist disclosing it to others, leading to the older brother’s arrest. After the brother gets out of jail, he vows revenge on his younger brother.
SITUATION 7: An elderly tribal chief reveals a secret prophecy to his grandson. The prophecy involves the destiny of their tribe (and also involves the grandson), and the young man promises to fulfill the prophecy. But the boy secretly plans to depart the tribe.
SITUATION 8: Suspected of suffering from autism, or some other mental dysfunction, a young boy is hospitalized in an effort to diagnose him accurately. During the boy’s hospital stay, a neurologist notices him writing down bizarre messages in an unknown language and muttering in an ancient language in his sleep. Hypnosis reveals that he is in contact with a boy from ancient Greece.
SITUATION 9: When the dying king confesses that he secretly exiled his pregnant mistress, a search is undertaken to find her before she gives birth (to nix the possibility of any claims to the throne). By the time they find her, she has already given birth, and the infant is nowhere to be found.
SITUATION 10: Diagnosed with a terminal illness, an old man tells his brother that he had cheated him out of thousands of dollars in a fraudulent business transaction and will bequeath him that sum in a codicil to his will. Alas, the terminal diagnosis proves false; now the brother demands the money up front.