We're All Liars... Especially Writers.
Great stories don’t start with plot. They start with pain. Characters who never lie, never bleed, never break—never connect. Here’s how to change that.
I’ve always believed the most powerful scenes in any story don’t come when the character wins.
They come when they break.
When they’re sitting on the floor with bloody knuckles and a mouth full of lies—trying to convince themselves it didn’t hurt that bad.
That’s where I’ve lived most of my life as a writer. Not in the triumphs. Not in the clean act breaks. In the breaking.
And it took me years to realize that’s where my best characters were, too.
I used to think great characters had to be honest. Raw. Vulnerable. Truth-tellers.
But the truth?
People lie.
They lie to others. They lie to themselves.
And the truth—the real, gut-splitting, soul-bearing truth—only shows up in the cracks.
The moments they drop their guard. The seconds they think no one’s watching.
That’s where they live.
That’s where we live.
And if we want to write characters that feel real—not like constructs or vessels or plot devices—we have to let them lie.
And then show us the cost of keeping that secret.
This is where the story starts.
So, how can you use character lies and truths to create better stories?
🎭 Before the Plot: Finding the Beating Heart
I’ve been staring at blank whiteboards for most of my creative life.
Sometimes with nothing but a whisper of an idea. Sometimes with the anchor of a character I can’t stop thinking about. Other times, just an ache—knowing there’s something I need to say, even if I don’t yet know how.
When I started working on Bathory—back when it was still a TV series—I had a title, a feeling, and a name history had already blackened: Erzebet.
But I didn’t want to write her as history remembered her.
I wanted to write her before the legend. Before the myth. I wanted to ask: what if the truth was more complicated? What if she was more than the blood-soaked stories? What if there was something human there—something terrifying and tender and real?
And so I asked the only questions that ever lead me to the heart of a character:
What is she afraid of?
What does she love?
What does she want so badly she’d destroy herself to get it?
What’s the lie she tells the world?
And what truth is she afraid will be seen?
That’s where we’re headed today.
This post is the first in a new series on story development—starting with characters. Not the cardboard ones. Not the plot puppets. The ones that bleed.
Inside this post:
How to anchor your character in emotion, not just action
The real difference between flaws and wounds
Why what your character hides is more important than what they say
The core question I ask every time I build a story from the ground up
Exercises and prompts to map your own unforgettable characters
Let’s dig in.
Because real characters don’t show up fully formed.
They have to be found—layer by messy, human, heartbreaking layer.
💔 Flawed Isn’t a Buzzword. It’s a Map.
Here’s a hard truth: a flaw is not a fun fact. It’s not a quirky tic or a nervous giggle. It’s not biting their lip or forgetting to text back.
A real flaw—one that leaves a mark—is rooted in something that hurts. Something that protects. Something that hides.
We say we want “flawed characters,” but what we really mean is human ones.
Characters who withhold love.
Who lash out before they get left.
Who self-sabotage because somewhere deep down, they don’t believe they deserve to win.
Those are the characters who stay with us—because we’ve been them.
I’ve written characters who kill. Characters who lie. Characters who cheat, steal, manipulate, isolate, and collapse under the weight of their own guilt.
But the ones who cut the deepest?
The ones who say, “I’m fine,” while bleeding out.
Because I know that lie. I’ve lived it.
And when I let my characters live there too—when I let them lie, and then show the cost—they stop being made of paper.
They start bleeding like the rest of us.
🧠 So, how do you write flaws that actually matter?
Here’s a simple framework I use when building character wounds:
1. What’s the lie they believe about themselves?
(e.g. I’m too much. I’m not enough. Love is dangerous. Vulnerability is weakness.)
2. Where did it come from?
Childhood? Trauma? A single moment they never recovered from?
3. How does it show up in their behavior?
(Do they push people away? Seek control? Numb out? Overcompensate?)
4. What would force them to face it?
What’s the relationship, event, or truth that cracks it open?
5. What’s the cost if they don’t?
Because the flaw isn’t just flavor—it’s the very thing that could cost them everything.
🎯 WRITING PROMPT:
Choose a character from your current work-in-progress.
Write a scene where they lie to protect their flaw.
Then—without changing scenes—reveal the truth they’re hiding from the reader.
What’s the emotional cost of that lie?
📌 Hard Truth of Writing:
You don’t need to make your characters likable.
You need to make them real.
And real people?
We lie. We crack. We bleed.
Let your characters do the same.
The Want, the Need, and the Wound
(Or, How to Break Your Characters in All the Right Places)
Every character wants something.
But what they need? That’s where the story lives.
The Want is what they chase.
The Need is what they avoid.
The Wound is what keeps them stuck in the middle—until they break.
We’ve all been there.
Telling ourselves, If I just get this job… if I just make this person stay… if I just write the perfect sentence…
Then it’ll all make sense. Then I’ll finally be okay. Then I’ll finally be a writer.
That’s the lie. (Because you’re doing the work, you’re already a writer. And a damn good one I want to read.)
And characters? They believe it too.
🧠 Here’s how I break it down:
• Want = The external goal. The thing they think will fix them.
• Need = The internal shift. The truth they have to face to be whole.
• Wound = The past pain that convinced them they’re not worthy of the need.
And when it’s done right?
That triangle becomes a compass for the whole story.
🎬 A Few Familiar Faces:
Tony Stark
Want: Control. Build better tech. Protect the world.
Need: Accountability. Vulnerability. Atonement. Selflessness over selfishness.
Wound: His weapons destroyed lives—and he profited from it.
Jay Gatsby
Want: Daisy. Status. A life he never had.
Need: Acceptance. Self-worth not built on illusion. To understand that money won’t ever buy real love.
Wound: Shame. He believed love could fix the lie he built his life on.
Erzsébet Báthory (from my own novel)
Want: Power. Protection. Freedom for her people from the rule of the Habsburg Empire.
Need: To be seen. Loved without conditions.
Wound: A world that raised her to believe softness was weakness—and that women like her were only worth what they could rule.
💥 My Mantra:
Let us hear the lie that lands as truth—then show us the truth. Or vice versa.
Most characters lie.
The good ones lie well.
But the great ones?
They lie in ways that make us nod.
Because we believe the same lie.
Because they’re lying to themselves most of all, and like us, they’re too blind to see it until it’s too late.
So when the truth finally breaks through—it doesn’t just wreck the character.
It wrecks us, too.
That’s how you destroy a reader in the best possible way.
That’s how you make them come back, book after book, story after story.
📝 WRITING PROMPT:
Pick a character from your current story.
1. What do they want more than anything?
2. What’s the deeper need underneath that want?
3. What’s the wound that keeps them from seeing it?
4. Write a moment where the Want and the Need come into conflict—and the Wound wins.
📌 Hard Truth of Writing:
You don’t need a plot twist to shatter your reader.
You just need a character who believes a lie so deeply…
that when the truth comes,
it breaks them open.
The Scene That Breaks Them
(Because the best transformations start with a fracture.)
There’s a moment in every great story—
Not the climax. Not the reveal.
But the crack.
The part where the mask slips.
Where the armor dents.
Where the lie becomes too heavy to carry, and the truth demands to be felt—even if no one else sees it.
It’s not always loud.
It doesn’t need a monologue or a meltdown.
But it has to cost them something.
Something real.
🔥 When I was writing Bathory, I knew Erzsébet couldn’t just be myth and shadow.
She couldn’t just scheme and seduce and slaughter her way through history. That’s called torture porn, and not something that was worth diving into. Plus, there were three other versions of her story floating out there as pilots and they were either that or some CW version of her story about a weak woman just wanting to be loved.
That’s not the Erzsébet that I saw. That I found when researching her story.
She had to break.
Not in some grand, supernatural way.
But in the “I’m terrified of being forgotten” way. In the “I want to be seen and loved for who I am, not the value of my name or what I offer” way.
The fear that all her power, her rule, her name—none of it would matter if no one saw the real her.
Not the Countess. Not the legend.
Just the girl who was told softness was weakness.
Who learned to become steel because that’s what the world demanded. Who understood that the true power in having power is giving it away. Empowering others.
That’s the crack I kept coming back to.
That’s what made her human.
🧠 How I Build These Moments:
I start with the emotion, not the plot.
What is the lie they believe right now?
What would they have to admit in this moment—for the truth to finally get through?
And who are they trying not to let see it?
That’s the scene.
It doesn’t need a big speech.
Sometimes it’s one line. One look. One choice they can’t take back.
💬 Sometimes the moment that changes them… is the one where they don’t say anything at all.
📝 WRITING EXERCISE: The Crack Scene
Pick one of your characters—preferably one that’s been hard to crack open.
1. What’s the lie they’re clinging to?
2. What would make them question it for the first time?
3. Who do they not want to see them break?
4. Write the moment they do.
✨ Bonus layer: Let the reader see the break… but not the other characters. Make it private. Make it hurt. Then let the reader see them lie about it to the person they love most in the world in the very next scene.
📌 Hard Truth of Writing:
If your character never breaks, your reader never bonds.
We don’t fall in love with perfection.
We fall in love with people—especially the ones who bleed where we bleed. Because we’re all broken. And broken is beautiful. (I have this tattooed above my heart in cracked stone font.)
🧠 Truth in the Telling
Look—none of this is new.
Every story structure’s been mapped. Every archetype named. Every “flawed but lovable” character has already stood in front of the mirror and asked themselves, Who am I if no one’s watching?
But the thing that makes it matter—the thing that makes it yours—is your POV.
Your heartbreak. Your hope. Your truth.
That’s what turns a familiar character arc into something unforgettable. That’s what breathes new life into old bones.
I’m not some masterclass-certified expert. I’m just a guy who loves to create characters, let them live and breathe, and shove them headfirst into the fire to see what comes out on the other side.
And if I’m doing it right?
Then what they learn—what they lose, what they fight for, what they finally admit—teaches me something about myself, too. About the world we live in. About what it means to break and still be worth loving.
That’s all I hope for you and your stories. That they teach you something. That they make someone else feel a little less alone. That the lies your characters tell help a reader somewhere find their truth.
Let’s wrap this one out with a little reminder…
💬 For the Writer Who Thinks It’s Not Working
Hey, writer—
If you haven’t touched your story in weeks…
If you’re staring at a character who feels lifeless on the page…
If every sentence you write sounds like someone else wrote it better—
You’re not broken. You’re just scared.
So stop trying to fix the character.
Start breaking them.
Let them lie. Let them withhold. Let them run from the thing they know is true.
And then?
Show us what they’ve been hiding.
Not because it makes the story better—
But because it makes you braver.
That’s the real work. That’s the real writing.
🔥 Hard truth: Every unforgettable character started as a flat one. It’s not talent that brings them to life. It’s what you’re willing to risk on the page.
And in the end, that’s all writing really is:
One brave truth at a time.
👉 What’s your character’s biggest lie?
What would really break them?
Drop it in the comments. Let’s get real. Let’s get writing.
So much good stuff in here, I have to save it to refer back to later!
The title though made me think of something I used to say a lot. I have a degree in professional bullshitting (ie, a degree in writing).
Wisdom is beautiful, and beauty is often wise ...