TRUTH OR LIE?

                 The object is not truth but persuasion. - Thomas Macaulay

This past year has dramatized how destructive lies can be when masqueraded as truth. We’d like to restore “the lie” to its more constructive realm: the creative! It’s been said that writers illustrate truth by telling lies (a fiction is “the lie through which we tell the truth” - Albert Camus). How about we test that assertion?

A favorite “suite time” exercise at Y-dubs over the years has been the party game “Two Truths and a Lie.” Poetry instructor Doug Nordfors (1994-2004, 2006, 2010) asked his poets to imagine they’re playing that; he’s the source for this month’s Jump In(vention)! Here’s the exercise:

Write down two interesting true facts about yourself (the operative word there is interesting) - and make up a similarly interesting false one. The true facts are competing with the falsehood that’s there masquerading as a truth. Now what you have is a set of tensions that only need you to set them in motion.

Next, write a piece in the genre of your choice that links all three - the two truths and the one lie - together. See what happens! When you’ve finished your draft, test what you’ve created against the assertion: Does the lie illustrate or otherwise reveal the truth?

If you’re feeling ambitious, try a second piece in which you either 1) combine just one of the truths with the lie; or 2) concentrate exclusively on the lie.

Then consider: How does that change the results?