The Dilemma of Telling the Truth in Fiction

I added to this article 24 Sept 2025 (sw)

Writing true stories is a hard and dicey affair. 

Recently, I experienced a paradoxical rejection of my historical novel (The Wizard Clip Haunting) principally because it features an important aspect of all story telling—paradox. In this case a paradoxical Catholic priest. The renegade (or vice) aspects of this priest's nature are historically documented. At the same time, the heroic (or virtue) aspects of this priest's nature are also historically true. Yet, because the priest plays a central role in the plot of the story, and because he fulfills the critical narrative nature of being human (that is, imperfection, which allows readers to connect with someone like themselves), a few Catholic readers are hesitant to endorse the novel. 

This is nothing new for any writer, especially any historical fiction or non-fiction writer. The problem occurs when the subject of your story touches on the beliefs or ideologies of a social subgroup that clings to those beliefs. It doesn't matter if the subgroup is a religious faith (e.g. Catholicism), a political party, professional organization, or a cadre of social activists. You're sure to upset someone, somehow, sometime...even if you're trying hard to tell the truth.

Although there is something called "objective" truth, to every social subgroup "truth" is relative and "subjective" to a particular worldview. This is what makes telling the truth difficult. 

If you have a character that is morally flawed -- and all characters need to be flawed for the story to connect with audiences -- there will be a subgroup in that audience who will cling to an "ideal" of how a particular character should act. And when your human character, who is part of a subgroup thinks, speaks, or acts in contradiction to the subgroup's ideal, although the character is being true to his human nature, members of the associated subgroup will be offended by what you've written. 

Have you told the truth? To the subgroup you may not have told the truth...about the reader's IDEAL. But you have told the truth about the character's fallible, human character.  The criticism comes because you have not sanitized the subgroup's hero and portrayed he or she as perfect—the central problem of most Christian, so-called "faith films."  My conclusion is that if you were to sanitize the hero and make him or her perfect, you would be lying—a lie historically and a lie about the human condition. 

Thus, writing true stories is a hard and dicey affair.  The best stories that resonate with truth of the human condition do not land solidly in the ideal worldview of good and evil, like the red or black realms of the above Yin-Yang illustration. Rather, the best stories that tell the truth reside on the curved line between the two realms. This thin and chaotic border is where all of humanity exists. The Yin-Yang also illustrates the necessity of mystery and the human soul's quest for perfection—the red and block dots.

Going a Bit Further 

In an early blog post, "Can Historical Fiction Be True?", I described six aspects of telling the truth in fiction.  The second aspect describes how multiple stories of the same event can conflict, simply by the storyteller's different perspective. This touches on the logical fallacy known as AND/OR. where one person may claim that a fact is either A or B, when the truth may actually be A and B.  

While "objective" truth may exist as a heavenly ideal, human "subjective" truth becomes a paradox—an apparent logical contradiction—that through reason can be explained as plausible. As writers of fiction or non-fiction, we all know that successful stories are based on what appears to be a contradiction or great irony. For example,  a man falls in love with a mermaid—something that is logically impossible—but through the skill of storytelling the writer explains how the impossible can be possible, e.g. the hit movie SPASH.  (1984, Ron Howard, Brian Grazer, Tom  Hanks, Daryl Hannah, John Candy & Eugene Levy.)  SPLASH necessarily lies on the Yin-Yang border or the A&B region. 

Thus, all good writing begins with an ironic premise, because the human condition is inherently ironic. At every moment of every day we all want something...but can't have it—the 2 spheres of the Yin-Yang.  Hope turns to despair, our exhausting effort is always in need of a rewrite, love is lost, and "snakes on a plane." All good stories are about the human condition, which by definition is ironic. The good guy is sometimes fallible, and the villain sometimes noble. 

Back to those social subgroups that cling to beliefs or ideologies—where "belief" is a logically defensible, and "ideology" is a logically indefensible. Depending on the topic, the subgroup, and the perspective, what is a belief to one is an ideology to another. Yes, irony is ubiquitous. 

Truth hurts. It's the human condition to avoid being hurt, to attack those who do the hurting, or at least shun such miscreants.  But while we are driven toward the ideal, it's the paradox that gives life intrigue.

How Fiction Tells the Truth and Non-Fiction Cannot.

Fiction is necessary to convey the truth about the human condition. Fiction allows the writer to examine the heart of his characters. Non-Fiction cannot authentically write about what someone is thinking, unless that thinking is confessed and documented—a memoir  But fiction, especially in a novel, can spend hours inside the value system and thoughts of a character. This occurs when the writer delves into the psychological heart and moral truth of natural law and its effect on the character and plot. In so doing, the character, at the hands of the writer, begins to explore how natural moral law and works—not just in the physical realm (like gravity) but also in the psychological realm (like guilt). 

What is worth underscoring here is that ALL physical action is the consequence of moral decision-making. The outward dissection actions take (what we normally document in non-fiction texts), must first originate in the mind, and what non-fiction cannot access. Thus, what happens in the non-fiction sphere is a metaphor for what happened previously in the mental value sphere, the sphere from which memoirs are written and where only fiction can tread.   

And this is what makes stories so alluring to audiences and readers—they get to peek behind the curtain at the truth of what is really going on .                                                                                                                   

How Invisible Moral Decisions Effect Visible Physical Plots

I'm helping a friend who has ALS write his memoir. He's a retired automotive design engineer who side-lined as arm-chair philosopher. For years he's been active on a few Internet forums that discuss politics, religion, philosophy, and language. He is always reminding people to "check your premise." 

Now he's not a story writer, so when he says "check your premise" he's not consciously referring to my book The Moral Premise, this blog, nor is he referring to writers crafting a story. 

Well, that's not exactly true. He IS referring to the person he's dialoguing with and the story they are writing about themselves with their life...in the same way a writer makes "life" decisions for a fictional character. 

In this idea of making moral decisions and checking your premise is the mechanical process that allows audiences to emotionally connect with fictional characters. The moral premises of our characters must accurately reflect how real people interact with the unchangeable laws of the universe. The laws of the universe include both physical and psychological laws—or metaphysical laws often referred to as spiritual and moral. Don't let anyone tell you naturally sourced spiritual and moral laws are relative. Governments can make laws and try to enforce them, but such "laws" are subject to the immutable laws of the universe and human nature. 

Back to my friend.

His advice to...

CHECK YOUR PREMISE...

lives alongside the concept that

REALITY DOES NOT AND CANNOT CONTRADICT ITSELF.

Neither can your characters live in contradiction to reality. But of course they try. That's the foundation of drama. A character can willfully walk off the edge of a 100-foot rocky cliff, as he attempts to force reality to contradict itself. But since reality does not and cannot contradict itself, your character falls to his death. 

In the same way, if a character lives by a moral premise that lying is a virtue (as some of our legislators believe) reality will catch up with them. Oh, for a time, a law that contracts reality may be passed and enforced, but eventually there will be a reckoning. Reality will have the last say.

When plotting out the physical beats of a story you must include in the plotting the moral premise (or the value system invisible in the character's head) for the character's physical actions. Mental decisions are part of the plot. Without the mental process you cannot have physical action. Of course, I'm assuming you're writing a story about a moral agent, a person who has the psychological will to act...either in cooperation with reality (natural law) or contrary to it. In every case, the internal, invisible decision, based on a motivating moral premise or value, will determine whether or not the physical consequences will bring pleasure or pain to your character. In order to connect with audiences that consequence must agree with reality. It cannot be in contradiction to reality. 

SUBTLE CONTRADICTIONS

Now, let's take this one level deeper into the sub-conscience, as Christopher Nolan (Inception) might do. Let's assume a character (like a person in real life) commits some contradiction to reality. He breaks a law, or commits a sin, or embraces some vice that is invisible to those around him. Yet it's not something brazen that will eventually be discovered is the physical realm, like an illegal pyramid scheme. Let's assume the contradiction (or vice) is entirely mental on the part of the character—envy, greed, lust, bitterness, hate, arrogance. Of course, any of these can easily be personified, and take the form of physical action. Your character participates in the mental game of envy, greed, lust, bitterness, hate, or arrogance because they believe (perhaps subconsciously) that harboring such thoughts will bring them pleasure. But reality does not allow pleasure to flow from vice. 

What happens is subtle. The character knows (consciously or subconsciously) that thoughts of envy, greed, etc. can lead to physical actions that others will quickly regard as wrong. This is where the age-old adage "what you think is what you are" comes into play. Such thoughts lead to guilt, and guilt leads to distraction, or perhaps evil thoughts lead to distraction first, and then guilt. Eventually, the character becomes obsessed with the thoughts and the potential ramifications that even without acting on the thoughts, other activities, even seemingly insignificant ones, like house keeping (making bed), hygiene (brushing teeth), and financial (no tips at a restaurant), lead to a lack of self-esteem, which leads to depression, which leads to some physical act that is seemingly totally unrelated to the original thoughts of envy, greed, etc. Perhaps it's an argument with the lawn service because the grass was cut too short. Perhaps your character drops a jug of milk and it spills all over the kitchen floor.  He's late for an appointment (due to multiple distractions that build up) and gets a ticket for speeding, and then argues with the cop and ends up in jail overnight. 

In this way even mental lapses with reality, and just thinking about living in contradiction with reality, can lead to a character's detriment. In this way a complex character can enter into a plot that may at first seem disjointed, until the real problem, a psychological, mental, moral, or spiritual mind set is revealed. 

CHECK YOUR CHARACTER'S PREMISE... 

...his moral values. Is he attempting to live in contradiction with reality, even if only inside his mind? Remember:

REALITY CANNOT CONTRADICT ITSELF. 

Only the government can contradict reality...although not for long.