The Truth About Lies in Fiction

In the arts there is much made of the notion of truth: writers search for the truth in a story; visual artists, no matter what form they work in, are all aiming to reveal or discover some form of the truth; scriptwriters want their work to resonate and to ring true; actors want to be true to their characters. How does all that sit within our concept of lying? For the most part society sees creating fiction as a positive activity whereas telling lies is held to be a negative activity. Fiction has a capacity to enrich and redeem, to foster insight and empathy. So where and how does the creative activity of visual, written, performed fiction - aimed at revealing a truth - cross over and meld with the real world idea of truth and lies? When we are creating tales of people who do not exist in places that never were (we need to) understand that 'truth' is not what (actually) happens, but what it tells us about who we are. Fiction is the lies that tell the truth,after all. - Neil Gaiman If lies can be measured on the same continuum as other creative acts do our lies say anything about us? Are lies simply another expression of our infinite capacity to respond creatively to the world we live in?… Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details