Tuesday, October 19, 2010

the art of lying

Lying and poetry are arts -
-arts, as Plato saw, not unconnected with each other -
and they require the most careful study, the most disinterested devotion.
--Oscar Wilde, The Decay of Lying

Exaggerate normal things. Imagination is a wild thing, amazing thing... Lie. Make-believe. Tell stories.

"Lying frees the liar from the constraints of truth, moving him or her into the higher realms of deliberately-conceived art and away from the grim realities of unpolished nature."

Lying, or storytelling, as antidote to unhappiness

Sinbad the Sailor and Baron Münchhausen - liars or storytellers?

Levitation - or how to suspend reader's disbelief

Hyperbole in Fiction Writing Engages Readers

Storytelling is not lying

He's a real fictional character - sometimes exaggeration works

2 comments:

Hart Johnson said...

There was a time when I thought the truth was the highest virtue. Over time, however, I've learned everyone has their OWN truth (and they often have very little overlap). I never thought I'd have an MC who tells lies, but the Cozy Mystery I am polishing has an MC who is a Public Relations professional... she doesn't LIE exactly, but SPIN is her livelihood, and withholding truth when it might harm her clients is just par for the course. I've had a lot of fun with it.

Ketutar said...

Sounds interesting :-)

William Blake said:
"A truth that's told with bad intent
beats all the lies you can invent"
- After having read Túrin's saga by Tolkien I named it The Dragons' Motto.