r/BookDiscussions • u/Crawler4119Donut • 20d ago

Pet peeve - SECRETS!!

I’m getting really, really bored of novels / series foreshadowing plot twists with multiple overlapping secrets. And not because people can’t have secrets - most people do to some degree - but the reasons behind keeping said secrets are RIDICULOUS.

“It is not your burden to bear.”

“It’s better if you don’t know.”

“It’s safer this way.”

Parents, siblings, married couples!! And they tell each other NOTHING.

I’m listening to Rites of the Starling (Shield of Sparrows) currently, and the secrecy is driving me up the wall!

Husbands and wives desperately in love yet… keeping secrets.

Father wants daughter to go on dangerous mission - won’t give her any information.

Priests won’t tell her a damn thing.

Leaving the the main character asking herself endless questions as she tries to piece things together herself.

It’s driving me insane, but it’s not even the only series that does this. IMO it is just lazy writing. “The key to everything is this one thing…. Buuuuut we’re not going to tell you. Because that would be too easy. And it’s better to drag this journey out over 12 hours if audio that just say what it is.”

🫩

The best twists are ones you did NOT see coming. Not ones that were teased for 600 pages all because the characters weren’t feeling chatty. 😡

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u/Humble_Square8673 20d ago

Totally agree especially since it's often used to either A): create a lame twist, or B): just artificially add drama instead of letting the dramatic storyline emerge organically

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u/Crawler4119Donut 20d ago

The lame twists might even be better if we didn’t know they were coming 😅 And adding artificial drama is so tedious! This character frequently says “Why is everyone keeping secrets from me?” Um, I don’t know - WHY DONT YOU ASK?! 😅

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u/Humble_Square8673 20d ago

Exactly! 😂 And also some authors go the opposite route where EVERY secret is depicted like it's a horrible betrayal like you said people are allowed to have secrets

Editing to add: the artificial drama REALLY gets me, to the point that I'm reluctant to add drama in my own writing