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Showing posts with label Liars. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Liars. Show all posts

Monday, June 10, 2013

How to Write a Liar Telling a Lie: Body Language 101 for Writers


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English: Eye with a contact lens (myopia).
 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Lies Lies Lies

So your heroine has found herself confronted with a problem. Should she believe what the other character is telling her or run for the hills?

She has a feeling that this is all a big fat lie. Why?

Our brains are phenomenal machines that take in millions of pieces of information, sorts through, and then offers us a small little wedge of consciousness.

Here are the cross-cultural "lying tells" (Studies also run on blind people who have never seen a lie in action) that you might write into the plot line to tickle her brain awake.



1.)  The liars hands. Body language studies show that people tend to touch their face and scratch
       their nose when they lie.

2.) Their eyes. Liars tend to blink a lot and do not maintain eye contact. They will sometimes have a rapid
     eye-shift then look down to the left

3.) Liars will often skip contractions saying I did not instead of I didn't. "I did NOT kill that woman!"

4) Liars will often skip pronouns using their names instead of he or she. "I gave it to Betty Sue."

5) Liars smile using only their mouth - the smile doesn't reach their eyes. Since the brain uses only one
    part to recall but three parts to plot a lie, the face will often freeze into an expression. The typical
    expression is an ingenuous smile.
English: smile
 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

6) Liars close their body posture. Arms and/or
    legs may cross, shoulders scoop inward, head
    lower.

7) Often a liar will put an object between
     themselves and the person to whom they are
     lying - like a  folder, coffee mug, or chair.

8) Extended pauses in the conversation make
    liars feel uncomfortable. The liar will fill in the
    space with words.

9) Liars provide more information than necessary
   - overly specific and detailed. "The girls were
   wearing team t-shirts." v. "The team was wearing matching red and white baseball t-shirts."

10) A liar will use a qualifier: "I want you to understand that..." "You can trust me..."

11) Liars will perceptibly change their breathing, sweating, and swallowing (too much saliva or dry mouth)

12) Liars tend to list to the side.

Added note - Liars tend to prefer technology (phone calls etc.). Because they do not need to maintain their body and facial features, they can focus on their tone and delivery. But as writers, we can still show the lie being  told. And when a lie is being told through technology the body language would not be monitored, so it will be even more on evident display.



VIDEO QUICK STUDY

How to Catch a Lier (3:57)
How to Detect Lies - Steven Van Aperen (4:20)
Scam School Teaches You How to Lie. (15:51)

    See how this article influenced my plot lines in my novella MINE and my novel CHAOS IS COME AGAIN.

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