I love quotes. Those we come across that mean something to us normally stick because we see grains of truth in them. This line struck me as a shiny nugget in a pile of coal.
Lying is done with words and also with silence ~ Adrienne Rich ~
When people lie using words, it's easy enough to look for motivation and to pass judgement on their sense of integrity, but lies that are 'told' with silence take on a new meaning: deception.
How does this transfigure into the realm of writing?
It's all about character and character development. Imagine that your main character tells a lie at the beginning of the book, and then goes merrily on their way, building a life and even a successful career from their lie, imagine that this lie destroyed the career paths of several of their colleagues in the process - the message is that it's a dog eat dog world. We may not like the main character, but we would portray them in a way that shows the harsh realities of life, and they would be ruthless - to say the least.
Taking the same character, who merely withhold information that will mean them succeeding in favour of their colleagues. This is deceit, which shows them to be cowardly. However, let's give the main character a background of growing up in a deprived area. They worked really hard to get to a stage where they could be really successful, and they don't want anything to stand in their way. Maybe, we get some empathy going. And to finish this character off, let's just give them a conscience, and at the moment when they could speak up, but choose not to, they keep their heads down, clasp their sweating palms together and refuse to make eye contact. They may win an achievement award for their success, but as they make their acceptance speech, you can see in their eyes they are uncomfortable. They see an old colleague in the room, and the colleague knows about their deception - now you have major conflict, because the deceptive liar will go to any lengths not to be found out. Could murder be their only defense?
This is what the quote meant to me, not just in terms of the words that create meaning, but on the depth of the verb, 'to lie', and the effect of such actions on character beyond the words: actions give words meaning in context. People who are being deceptive are often more dangerous than the out and out liar. The wordless deceiver expects to get away with not saying anything incriminating, even though their thoughts creep through in their actions.
And just like writing fiction, words and actions gives character to people we meet in our real world.
