Settings & worlds · Tip 45 of 82 · 5 min read
Secret Doors and Hidden Places
Wardrobes, trapdoors and hidden passages: how to lead your reader somewhere nobody else has been.
A wardrobe that leads to a snowy land. A garden locked away behind a high wall. A platform hidden between two others at a train station. Secret doors and hidden places are some of the most exciting ideas in all of storytelling, because everyone wishes they could find one.
Hide it somewhere surprising
A secret door works best when it's somewhere ordinary. Think about all the places a door could hide:
- Behind a bookcase, a painting or a mirror
- Under a rug, a bath or a garden shed
- Inside a hollow tree or a broken clock
- At the back of a cupboard that seems to go on forever
- Painted on a wall, so it only looks like a picture
Leave clues first
Before your character finds the door, give your reader some hints. A draught where there shouldn't be one. A cat that always sits in the same spot. Footprints that stop at a wall. Clues make the discovery feel exciting instead of random.
Okay 😐
Ruby found a secret door in the attic and went through it.
Wow! 🤩
For a week, Ruby had felt a cold breeze on her ankles whenever she sat in the attic. Today, she followed it. It led her to a loose plank, and behind the plank, to a door no taller than her knees, with a brass knocker shaped like a snail.
Decide the door's rules
Does the door only open at midnight? Only for one person? Can you come back the same way? Rules make the hidden place feel special, and breaking them can cause brilliant trouble.
What's on the other side?
A hidden place can be a whole new world, a forgotten room full of treasure, or somewhere smaller and stranger, like a tiny village of mice. Make it feel very different from the place your character came from.
On this side of the door, it was a rainy Tuesday in November. On the other side, it was summer, and the air smelled of strawberries and warm stone.