Where the Truth Lies

Mark Twain worked in a riverboat on the Mississippi. It's worth noting that his most famous work isn't a nonfiction piece called "Working On the Mississippi." His most famous book is called Huckleberry Finn. It's no coincidence that Finn has adventures up and down the river with runaway Jim.The magic of fiction comes from the strange story-world that is at once familiar, because the story has truth. When I read Huckleberry Finn as a younger man I was fascinated with the details of the narrative that Twain captures. He knew the river. And the picture he paints of it lends weight to Huck's story, because if the river is real then Huck is real and Jim is real and the story has stakes.The exercise for today is to practice wrapping the truth with lies in such a way that the story is engaging and resonant and unexpected. I like to learn while I compose. If I want to write about a truth I've learned about love, I'll set the scene in a place that I may not know, but that I want to learn about. The character may have a job I've never done, family relationships that I've never had, and thoughts that have never crossed my mind - in fact, the character must. Without this strangeness, the narrative will not strike the reader. But the truth must come through. These details that are added, these lies, are what make the writing fiction, but if the lies don't sound like the truth, they make the writing bad.***The truth:The character can sense that he is in real dangerThe lie:The character has extrasensory abilities, or is crazy.The room was crowded and Thomas felt confusion threatening to overtake him. The ground whispered that treacherous feet walked the floor. In other men's eyes mirrors on the walls showed the dark shadows, which twisted and danced to show the man's intentions. A portrait told him that there were at least two people who had whispered against him in the short time he had spent in the room. With his eyes he asked the portrait who they were, but the oil-canvas mouth would say no more.***This approach is likely more effective when used sparingly. In One Hundred Years of Solitude, I will never forget the image of blood flowing its way up the street and to the feet of a grandmother; the blood surely did not do so, but perhaps the grandmother knew right away that her relative had died. It is a powerful method for conveying emotional truth, and is called magical realism. In the novel Gabriel Garcia Marquez uses the device only every now and then, and so to great effect.Getting Started: 1Character: 1Point of View and Tone: 1Plot and Narrative: 1Dialogue and Voice: 0Descriptive Language and Setting: 0Revision: 0Overall: 0