Lying 101

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Lying 101?

• A graceful lie, characterization, and details

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Truth and Lies

• Is fiction a lie?
• How is it different from a lie in the usual
  sense of the word?
• What is the readers rolein this lie?

3
Reality-based Creative Lying

• All successful fiction has truth to it. How so?
• Good fiction is true to life.
• Real-seeming details, people, and motives

4
Real life and Fiction

• So whats the difference between your day, and
  the story of your day?
• Stories are
• edited, heightened, manipulated, tightly plotted,
  absent of messy distractions and tangents
• CRAFTED

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Details, Details, Details

• Details come before all else
• Get a handle on description (an essential tool of
  the writer)
• We create whole worlds
• Actually transport the reader
• Bring them into immediate physical contact with
  the story world

6
Show, Dont Tell

• First we observe, then we conclude (the order is
  important)
• Sharing engages senses and offers evidence
• Telling summarizes without evidence

Tip Avoid subjective words, particularly words
that describe emotional states.
examples
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From In Our Time
They shot the six cabinet ministers at half-past
six in the morning against the wall of a
hospital. There were pools of water in the
courtyard. There were wet dead leaves on the
paving of the courtyard. It rained hard. All the
shutters of the hospital were nailed shut. One of
the ministers was sick with typhoid. Two soldiers
carried him downstairs and out into the rain.
They tried to hold him up against the wall but he
sat down in a puddle of water. The other five
stood quietly against the wall. Finally the
officer told the soldiers it was no good trying
to make him stand up. When they fired the first
volley he was sitting down in the water with his
head on his knees.
SHOWING
Write hard and clear about what hurts.
8
My version
Six cabinet ministers were terribly executed. One
was sick so they took him out to the wall and
tried to make him stand up. They did not care
that he was already almost dead with disease.
They brutally killed him without any feelings of
guilt or remorse. It was a sad event. Me
-)
TELLING
Err Hi
9
From Light in August
There was a track and a station, and once a day a
mixed train fled shrieking through it. The train
could be stopped by a red flag, but by ordinary
it appeared out of the devastated hills with
apparitionlike suddenness and wailing like a
banshee, athwart and past the little less-than
village like a forgotten bead from a broken
string.
SHOWING
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Another version
There was a train station. Once a day a train
came through. It could be stopped by using a red
flag, but usually it just went through. Me
-)
TELLING
Err Hi
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The Summary Pitfall

• Telling language exposes a crisis in our
  confidence as writers. Trust your details. Show.

Quick ExerciseRewriteIt was clear John was
angry.
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The Unnecessary Sentence
She met him at the door with a glare that could
freeze lava. He could tell she was angry. Which
sentence is not necessary?
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Beware of issue-driven plots

• What should my storybe about?
• Stories dont come until the character comes to
  life
• If a plot is issue driven, the result can be
  puppet-like characters (that no one cares about)

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So lets start with characters