Tell The Truth

…and nothing but the truth when it comes to your characters.

I’m working my way through Ray Bradbury’s Zen and the Art of Writing and every few pages I come across something that goes *ping* in my writer’s brain. Last night, he described how a character he never intended to write about came to him and said, “Tell the truth about me.” (Page 113) And because he is a writer who listens, he had to. The result? An honest and acclaimed piece.

Every day when a writer sits down at their paper or keyboard, their characters ask us to do this. In our best work we not only listen, but we comply. We relax our minds and shut the doors to thinking and we bring forth something honest and true. (And sometimes discover something so shocking it jolts us, such as our beloved character is having an extramarital affair.)

When we don’t listen, when we don’t comply, when we push and shove our ideas of story onto our characters, that is when we fall apart, get writers block, and create stilted stories that don’t work, that don’t speak.

I’ve been procrastinating on my work in progress because I am at a point where I have to sit back and think. Or so I thought. Maybe all I need to do is sit back, relax, and channel my characters’ inner truths and those character arcs will place themselves on the page, weaving and tying themselves to the other characters in a way that wouldn’t happen if I pushed it.

How about you? Do your characters force you to tell the truth?

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