How To Effectively Express Deep Truth

It is said about the author Ernest Hemingway that he wouldn't get up from a writing session until he wrote one true sentence.

He didn’t mean “true” as in, “water is wet.” What he meant is something ineffable, as in, something that is difficult to express, but when expressed properly, strikes a chord deep in the soul of the audience.

That’s what artists talk about when they talk about “truth.”

But how can truth be quantified, when the reality we live in is so seemingly… subjective?

Let’s take the example of two layers of reality that exist simultaneously and have almost nothing to do with one another, using the example of a concrete brick.

From the point of view of a tiny quantum particle shooting through the brick, the molecules that compose it appear to be miles apart.

The brick is basically invisible.

In another reality, if I stand ten feet over you and drop that brick on your head, it will HURT.

While both realities are true, only one matters— the one that exists for YOU.

You can’t experience how a quantum particle traverses a brick, so your experience of it won’t have the power to move anyone.

Put another way, if you try to communicate what you believe to be true without having experienced it directly, it will ring hollow.

So. Rule #1 for expressing deep truth: It has to, at least in some small way, be true for you.

That said, we all know what it’s like to be hit hard by physical objects, so… what’s the point in trying to dig into the truth of that?

That’s where the second rule comes in.

Rule #2: Your truth must be resonant.

Think of a string strung tightly from point A to point B. Now think of a bow moving across it. What happens? The string vibrates. That vibration creates resonance.

In music, when that resonance hits your ear, it is processed by your eardrum as sound.

If the sound is pleasing, it will move you emotionally.

The same is true for a story, and the same rules apply.

If you create tension, strung between relatable, polar opposites, and vibrate them by exploring their opposite-ness, this creates resonance.

Examples:

Darkness——Light

Rich——Poor

Dependence——Self-Reliance

Addict——Sober

All of the above pairs describe movement from one relatable polarity to another. Whenever tension is activated between them, you have drama.

For instance, imagine all the tension that could be explored in a scenario where someone who is newly sober still lives on a block with drug dealers.

Rule #3: The degree of resonance felt by your audience corresponds to the depth of the truth being expressed.

What this means, is that the truth must be hard won.

This means, YOU, truth teller, should have had to sacrifice something big to get it, either in terms of time-to-realization, loss, mistakes…

Rule #4: The truth must be hidden.

You can’t just say the truth, it must be expressed through the energetic pathway of the dramatic structure, through increasing stakes strung along a taut, obvious polarity of opposites, until a moment of catharsis.

(this is also known as The Hero’s Journey)

Let’s take the aforementioned polarity: Dependence—Self-Reliance and make a story out of it.

Little Johnny grew up rich, and had everything handed to him on a silver platter. The table was set for his entire life until his parents died two weeks shy of his 18th birthday. He thought they would leave him millions of dollars, but as it turns out, they were deeply in debt. With no money, Johnny was forced to scrap and hustle on his own. It was nearly impossible at first, but with sheer grit and determination, he eventually built a fortune of his own.

If the story is told well, a deep, resonant truth emerges in the collective mind of the audience:

In this life, no one is coming to save you. You are the master of your own destiny.

Now I want to clarify something. Is it necessary to have gone through exactly what Johnny went through to get at this resonant truth? No. All you need is to know it yourself on some small scale.

Even the most broad-based, high budget, effects-driven movie you’ve ever seen held a central truth that was deeply personal for the writer.

They just used the story to make it resonant.

Put another way, none of us has the power of Thanos or knows what life is like on Titan, but we all know about loss, so we can relate to his loss.

Make sense?

To recap, to effectively express deep truth, you must:

• Draw upon your own experience.

• Pick an obvious polarity that you can relate to, and explore it in depth.

• Express a truth that took sacrifice to unearth.

• Hide it in the dramatic structure of whatever you create, so the audience can discover it for themselves.

That’s all for now. If this was valuable, share it please.

I’ll see you on the path,

Patrick Christell

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I am a professional storyteller. I’ve been doing it for over two decades. I’ve synthesized everything I’ve learned into a self-actualization framework wherein anyone can apply the structure of epic storytelling toward becoming not only a master storyteller, but the master of their own life story. I call this framework StoryChanging. For more, browse the rest of my newsletter here, follow me on Twitter or check out my website. If you have any questions, or just want to chat, feel free to reach out on twitter DMs or via the email link on my website.