Family secrets
Weekly Writing Prompt No. 60
Hello everyone, and welcome to the weekly writing prompt.
For those who are new to The Writing Shed, the weekly writing prompt is the core of my activity here on Substack. Paid members can find an archive of courses I’ve created and access all past writing prompts, flash fiction attempts, and essays from The Index.
So have fun, enjoy the process, and write heaps.
Old Father Time, night cap askew and with his pince-nez perched on the end of his nose, held a candle aloft trying to see clearly who was calling on him at midnight.
A slight smile reached upwards into his eyebrows when he spotted the tell-tale feather in the hat of his favourite niece.
He opened the door wide and ushered her in out of the wintry night.
‘Uncle’ she said.
‘Yes’, he said, smiling widely.
‘I’ve come bearing gifts of Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh as I know you have an important job to do tomorrow night’.
He looked at her carefully, no one knew the secret mission passed down to him father to son through the ages. But clearly, someone did know.
‘Who else knows?’ he asked.
‘Only me. I noticed the family resemblance in the medieval paintings when Mother took me to Venice last year.’ She smiled. ‘Don’t worry, your secret is safe with me’.
The Prompt
Secrets are the meat (cheese, or lettuce) in the sandwich of a good story. If you read enough books then you’ll notice that a secret, deliberately or inadvertantly, kept is often at the heart of genre novels. They are something readers easily relate to because most families have one or two hiding in the closet.
Good secrets are rooted in deviations from the usual expectations of life; for example the uncle who ‘died’ suspiciously, the bigamous aunt, or a sibling never mentioned.
What secret would you like your real or fictional family to keep, and why?
Please share your poetry or prose in the comments below, I love to see how differently each prompt is approached, and a wide variety of responses demonstrates possibilities to the rest of us we might not have thought of.
Remember, you never know where today’s prompt may take you in the future!
Reflect
I include a reflection opportunity with every writing prompt. Personally, it helps me to write them longhand in my bullet journal as the act of moving my hand across a page seems to create a deeper connection to my inner world. You might like to do the same to see how differently it feels, especially if you write predominantly with a device.
How do you feel about keeping secrets? Are they exciting or dangerous?
Have you ever had to keep a secret you didn’t wish you knew? And if so, what effect does this have on your relationship with any other people involved?
Where and how do secrets feature in your own work, if they do?
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The Weekly Newsletter
Something to get listen to …
I heard Matt Harvey read Thwock in a village hall in Dorset about ten years ago and was so impressed by his combination of comic timing and repetition. In 2010, he was the offical poet in residence for Wimbledon.
The Weekly Writing Competition
Get ready for the Briefly Write Poetry Prize for poems up to 10 lines. It’s not open yet but that shouldn’t stop you from starting the perfect entry for June. The cost is, of course, free and you can find out more and read last year’s winning entries here: https://brieflywrite.com/
With love, light, and laughter
Linda
x
(Image by unknown)
He ran down the corridor
Bursting to say:
“Guess what I just
Discovered today?
But you already know, mum.
And you dad, too.
Why didn’t I know?
Who told Aunt Lou?”
I feel left out.
A secret not shared.
Nobody told me.
Nobody dared.
They knew I’d be upset.
I’d not understand -
How could we be moving
To a strange new land?
I’ll leave all my friends.
I won’t talk like them.
I won’t have my bedroom.
I’ll be starting again.
They knew for a year.
Why did nobody say?
I thought secrets were bad?
I’ve learnt something today..
“Oh and there was the baby,” Mam said. They were talking family history again. Having got about as far as he was likely to with his own side of the family Dad had started on hers. We knew all about the sisters, they’d been part of our lives as kids, and Nanny too for a little while. We didn’t know grandfather (or grandad or gramps or whatever he might have wanted to be called) but we knew about him. We’d heard tales, we’d heard him quoted. We knew about the brothers too, who followed their Dad down into the pit, and carried its poison in their lungs. All three into their early graves. “And there was the baby,” Mam said.
We didn’t – still don’t – know about the baby. Nameless. Lost. Forgotten. Some things, it seems become their own kind of secret, not because they are hidden, but because they are simply not spoken of. They are forgotten, lost, nameless.
I wonder about that secret baby – that sacred nameless child – where in the sequence did he or she arrive and how (and how quickly) did (s)he depart again?
We’re not great grave-tenders in my family, more lately the choice is not to have graves at all, or even markers – but we care about the names and the stories, and I wish I knew the secrets of that short (or unlived) life of that un-named little one. I may be the only person in the surviving family that even knows he or she ever was.