Writing a short story with a secret code
I want to write a fictional short story where part 2 is embedded in part 1. Has anyone heard of this or tried this?
Any ideas of resources would be greatly appreciated.
Edited for Clarity:
Imagine a story where every letter could be turned into another letter (or every word into another word) if the person converting those letters or words had a secret key (a code or password, for example).
Now, imagine if a story, which was written as fiction or literary fiction for example, had a second story, again fiction or literary fiction, embedded within its letters and/or words that, when converted with the key or password, turned into a brand new story--perhaps a continuation or sequel.
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1 answer
You could certainly try, but it sounds like the main story would come out gibberish to me.
The only example of this which springs to mind is the Sherlock Holmes story "The Adventure of the Gloria Scott." A character receives a letter which reads:
"The supply of game for London is going steadily up. Head-keeper Hudson, we believe, has been now told to receive all orders for fly-paper and for preservation of your hen pheasant's life."
Which sounds kind of incoherent. It's actually in skip code, so every third word is the real message:
"The supply of game for London is going steadily up. Head-keeper Hudson, we believe, has been now told to receive all orders for fly-paper and for preservation of your hen pheasant's life."
which is:
The game is up. Hudson has told all. Fly for your life.
I honestly don't know how you'd make a framing story which was readable and had plot and character development while also going through all the coding circumlocutions to create the embedded story. Or conversely, the main story would be readable and the second story would be a short, oddly-worded missive because you could only use the terms from the main story.
It seems like either you'd sacrifice readability of the main story to create the second, or the second would be seriously hobbled by being subject to whatever you could pick out of the main narrative.
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