https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuxss1kBQWw

This week your protagonist has a secret. A big, uncomfortable secret. The kind of secret that lives rent-free inside your head. It needn't be anything terrible or transgressive, but it must be something which, once the cat's out of the bag, would forever alter public perception of their person. This secret, whatever it is, comes with two important caveats:

• Your protagonist must "Own" their secret. No victims. I don't wanna read any stories about survivor's guilt or ingrained trauma over something you didn't ask for. Your protagonist is complicit. This is something they've done or were party to, even if only accidentally or circumstantially, and now they carry it with them. They were someone who acted, not acted upon.


• No matter their secret, your protagonist should be someone who remains sympathetic. To have your secret shared is to be vulnerable. Don't betray their vulnerability by denying their humanity.

The rest I leave to you. No fanfiction, no screeds, no saucy love triangles.

Word count is 1,000. If you'd like a flash rule, you can have one, but if you want more words, I'm putting out a bounty: crit someone else's story (in this thread where I can see it) for an additional 500 words; any story, ever; ideally someone who still posts, but you do you. I ain't a cop. It should go without saying, of course, that this be a substantive crit, not "Story bad, lol."