Try This: The Truth-Teller Character

Three Good Ways to Goose Your Plot

Tick Climbing the Fence

Making the Invisible Visible. Bringing the Inside Out.

You’ve hit this impasse: The master plan is chugging along, the characters seem fated to their predictable destiny, tension lags… and you’re only twenty-five pages into the first draft. What to do? What would Charlotte Bronte do? Well, in 1847 she took her male lead — Edward Rochester, the master of Thornfield Hall, a hulking brute of a man’s man who made Emily Bronte’s Heathcliff (also 1847) look pussy-fied in comparison — Charlotte took her virile alpha male, and she put him in a dress, and she put him in a wig and a lady’s hat. Charlotte blacked his face and made Rochester speak in a funny voice and pretend to be a female gypsy fortuneteller.

I’ll let Jane Eyre tell it:

… and the Sybil — if Sybil she were, was seated snugly enough in an easy chair at the chimney-corner. She had on a red cloak and a black bonnet; or rather, a broad-brimmed gipsy hat, tied down with a striped handkerchief under her chin… her hat-brim partially shaded her face, yet I could see, as she raised it, that it was a strange one. It looked all brown and black: elf-locks bristled out from beneath a white band which passed under her chin, and came half over her cheeks or rather jaws; her eyes confronted me at once, with a bold and direct gaze.

‘Well, and you want your fortune told?’ she said in a voice as decided as her glance, as harsh as her features.

Yeah, this is the lord of Thornfield Hall. During a party in his country manse he pretends to be called away on business. His pretty-but-aloof fiance is in attendance, as is Jane Eyre and a passel of gentlefolk. Things look pretty mapped-out at this point — page 195 of a 460-page novel. Rochester is to marry snotty Miss Ingram, and Jane Eyre dreams of banking enough governess money to open a girls school and die a spinster. Dolled up as a woman of color¹ Rochester first asks to tell the fortune of his fiance, Miss Ingram. She emerges from the private palm reading… Again, I’ll let Jane tell it:

Miss Ingram took a book, leant back in her chair, and so declined further conversation. I watched her for nearly half an hour: during all that time she never turned a page, and her face grew momently darker, more dissatisfied, and more sourly expressive of disappointment. She had obviously not heard anything to her advantage; and it seemed to me, from her prolonged fit of gloom and taciturnity, that she herself, notwithstanding her professed indifference, attached undue importance to whatever revelations had been made to her.

What Charlotte Bronte gives us is a Truth-Teller character. Dressed up, Rochester tells his would-be fiance that she’s a stuck-up phony whom no man is going to marry (talking about himself in the third-person, always a great trick). The gypsy knows everything about each guest because they’re all his life-long friends. Eventually he’s alone with Jane Eyre and tells her that she’s a ninny for wanting to settle for running a girls school, and that true love is within her grasp if only she’d see that. Of course he means himself, and that she should recognize his love for her, but Jane is slow on the pick-up. What’s important is that the reader recognizes his declaration of love, well, and that snotty Miss Ingram is no longer a threat.

Consider the Three Kinds of Truth-Teller Characters

One is the impostor. Rochester is such an imposter. In Fight Club as Marla is being dragged away from her apartment, she pretends to be a bystander. As such, she can tell the emergency responders the “truth” about herself. That she used to be a lovely and talented person, but that she’s lost faith in herself. She’s infectious human waste, and there’s no saving her now. Thus, the imposter can state the truth about another character… or herself. Making the invisible visible.

Yes, You Should Keep Your Books From College & High School

Another Kind of Truth-Teller is the Skeptic

A great example is Thelma Ritter’s character, Birdie, in All About Eve. Birdie is a Cassandra, who tries to warn everyone away from toxic Eve Harrington, but whose skepticism goes ignored.

If you want another example, think of Helen Ripley from Alien. She’s the skeptic everyone ignores. Lately I’ve been applying my martyr-murder-witness template to Alien. Tom Skerritt is clearly the by-the-book Good Boy who follows orders and goes on a suicide mission. “Close all the hatches behind me. I’m moving on.” Such a Nathan Hale! The robot science officer Ash is the rebel who must be murdered. As the skeptic and the witness, Ripley escapes.

The Third Type of Truth-Teller is the Psychic

Or, anyone with special powers of foresight. Think of the character Helga Ten Dorp in the Ira Levin play/film Death Trap. She speaks broken English, dresses oddly, she’s comic relief, and as such she can tell the truth and foresee all the big plot points.

When things are running too smoothly, Helga barges in with her predictions. She creates tension. She creates foreshadowing. She get a low-comedy laugh.

In my own books, consider the character Fertility from Survivor. She’s psychic so she can stoke the plot and keep it moving. With her special powers, Fertility can steer the protagonist, Tender Branson, to fame and finally to peace. She knows exactly where to be when his plane eventually crashes.

Likewise, the character War Dog from Shock Induction. War Dog knows the entire book is a drug-induced state, so War Dog knows all the plot points and can sleepwalk through the story until the current protagonist, whoever thinks they’re Samantha Deel, chooses to veer off course. War Dog can act as a road map, calling up small plot points, but the story really happens when War Dog is ignored… or Birdie is ignored… or Lt. Ripley is ignored. Or Cassandra.

If Jane Eyre hadn’t been so slow on the uptake, her book would only have been two hundred pages.

Use a truth-teller to goose the plot, to foreshadow events that no one wants to recognize (Beware of Greeks bearing gifts), or to plant seeds of doubt in the reader’s mind.

Which Brings Us to…

Consider This as Presented by my Most-Excellent Japanese Publisher Hayakawa

I’ve got three copies of this Japanese edition to give away. The usual rules apply. If you’re within the United States I’ll inscribe and ship you a copy. First three to call “dibs” in the Comments below get one. The tattoos, however, are not translated.

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As for truth-tellers, name a favorite of yours from literature or film.

In July I was supposed to attend the Celsius232 festival in Spain. The organizers have been very generous, providing for travel and accommodations. The ugly truth is that my finances are still in tatters from the 2019 embezzlement, so I can’t afford the travel expenses at my end. If you do attend Celsius232, I wish you a wonderful time.

1. Yeah, this section has become infamous in English Lit. I can see Emily and Charlotte debating whether Wuthering Heights should include a scene where burly Heathcliff dons a frock and wig to crash a ball at Thrushcross Grange and dish out some Black girl magic. To her credit Emily said, “No, Heathcliff is weird enough as it stands.”