What lies beneath

In fiction, as in life, all is revealed through the actions of our characters.

Characters, like people, don’t always tell the truth. They often say what they think is true, or what they’d like to be true, without arriving at a clear expression of their most salient psychological reality.

Usually it’s because they hold multiple truths – layers of thoughts, feelings and motives - which are tangled together in complicated ways.  They may not always be aware of them. Or they may be hiding them, from other people or themselves.

There are as many reasons for this as there are stories: greed, ambition, pride, complex relationships, love, strategy, duty, conformity, lust, passivity, laziness, hurt, denial, self-interest, lack of insight, or fear.  Especially fear.

But whatever the reason, characters may develop a version of their personal story that they tell other characters.  And they’ll assert it repeatedly, even when it contradicts the circumstances they find themselves in.  As the plot progresses and the situation changes, the dissonance between the stated reality and the actual reality grows, until it’s obvious to everyone except them.

      

But just because the character gets away with this self-delusion, doesn’t mean the writer can. When faced with a disconnect between what a character is saying and what’s really happening, your reader will look to the evidence. What has the character done over the longer arc of the story? How have their deeper feelings or thoughts been reflected in their gestures, their voice, or their reactions?

In life, the deeper truths usually leak out in subtle ways (#subtext). It’s the tiny, unconscious signals that people transmit that tell us what’s really going on. So when you’re writing, use a light touch. Provide tiny, understated details, but do it consistently. Give your readers the cues they need to work it out for themselves. And give your characters space to arrive at their place of truth.

These deeply held motives are powerful. If you work with them, they will drive the real story in your story.