In a post on Writer Unboxed, Kathleen McCleary talks about truth and lies, and how your characters use them. “What people lie about, who they lie to, and why they lie is one of the deepest and most revealing things about character,” she says. “There are lies that are actual untruths, lies that omit the full truth, and gray lies, the half-truths we all deal in more frequently than we’d like to admit. And the most interesting and most revealing lies are the lies we tell ourselves.”
McClearly suggests examining what lies your characters tell and to whom. What are they hiding? What are they afraid might happen if the truth is told? To whom we lie says a lot about our motivation – do we want to impress someone? Protect their feelings? Fit in? What alternative trute are we trying to create?
Lying also has a group dynamic. Behavioral economist Dan Ariely found that when someone in a social circle cheats on their partner, others who witness the cheating become more comfortable and likely to follow suit. “Is your character a basically honest person who might be willing to lie or bend the rules if their close friends were?” McCleary asks. “How far would they go in lying or cheating before they decided there’s a line they won’t cross, even if it alienates someone close to them?” Other factors to consider are moral codes and religious beliefs, desires, and needs.
“Dig deep into the lies your character tells and you’ll find their deepest desire which is, as we all know, the secret to every great story,” McCleary writes.
