How to write fiction telling half truths or lying better

—Grandma, why do you have those big ears?

—To listen better what people say around

—Grandma… why do you have that big mouth?

—To tell better lies when I tell you stories, my love

Let’s face the fact. To be a writer, particularly a fiction writer, is to lie…a little. I mean, you won’t become that despicable being whom lies to everybody. Maybe, and only maybe, you’ll come to become a brutally honest person in a total opposite reversal of the situation. It isn’t like you will tell people the national oil company that went bankrupt years ago needs to re-structure its debt or to promise to do things you won’t be able to.

To lie is to write fiction? Yes. And this only from a certain point of view (since looked at in a certain way it is lying). You will lie along the day…or better said: along your story. Your mission, were you to take it, is TO HAVE US BELIEVE. It comes with the craft and takes imagination as a requirement. It takes to tell the reader there’s a cow eating their rhododendrons (in spite of no cow or flowers being there) and have them to believe so.

To imagine is to see and project into someone else’s mind what’s not there; at least for Monte Wildhorn, the writer character in Magic of Belle Isle. Robert McKee says you have to achieve the common individual to throw away their disbelief and pay attention to you through identification or sympathy with the character. The moment they ask themselves “IS this even possible?”; your credibility is gone away. And with such credibility, sympathy does too.

You see…my brother and Big-Choma recommended me All you need is kill. An action manga with nice drawing and a suitable plot but…the damnest fine mistake of using the almost blind without spectacles character. How the bloody heck does she keeps the round half face covered glasses in place every single time she looks downwards?

Shortsighted as I am (terribly shortsighted) I know any plastic, either High-Index Plastic lenses or simple plastic or Aspheric lenses; takes some thickness related to its power. Anything above 10[1] dioptres is HEAVY. It is uncomfortable and it slips down your nose as soon as you look to the floor. I have had lenses crashing onto it because. Nothing has broken but still, they get scratched.  A perfect reason to avoid frames when you’re wearing 18 dioptres.

This tiny bity minuscule detail spoils plots for me. Why? Cause I know it is impossible. The empiric physics about lenses that I possess, tells me: the thicker the lens, the heavier it is. The bigger the frame, the bigger and heavier the thing becomes. Heavier means it is easier for it to fall.

Thus to lie convincingly, in Kinsey Millhone’s words (character from The crime alphabet[2]) you must: tell three quarters of the truth and add invention for the remaining quarter. Wending explains that you lead the reader by giving them three ascertainable facts and feed them a probable or possible yet to be ascertain fact. So its plausibility makes it believable.

Which takes us to a really interesting and also boring side of the fiction craft. RESEARCH. So, how is it that one lies by telling three quarters of a truth?

If you look at fiction as the creation of an unreal world, with characters that outside such world don’t exist and probable but nor real facts; we’re talking in a way of a lie. Essentially from the POV of the journalism. So to tell fiction is the same as lying… in a way.

For the time being, wash your hands going back home and touch your face the least possible, have alcohol gel handy. I know, we’re mask free! Still, Covid has been one of the most resilient and strange things out there. And people is still getting sick. This blog entry tough, is virus free. You can like it fearless of contagion…What am I saying? I would love this blog to infect the world! So like it, share, subscribe, whatever.

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[1] I started wearing contacts 10 dioptres at 12… Along the usual resting glasses. From then on, the prescription went up to get settle in 18 or 19. Each and every single time I changed spectacles, I cursed the artifacts for they were heavy and cut my nose’s circulation; causing headaches. I mean, I’m an expert of sorts since without glasses I’m practically blind. And the sensible recommendation to minimize this is to choose smaller frames.

[2] I don’t open a quote since I’m using it directly from my memory and my memory (as human memories in general) is fallible. I don’t think myself able to remember what book of that series I read it so to start looking it up. I’ll greatly love if you know and share with me your knowledge.