Part I: The Truth Beneath the Fiction
I used to believe that fiction was the safest way to tell the truth - that if I just changed the names, rewrote the setting, or disguised my emotions beneath a metaphor, no one would ever really know what I was saying. But what I didn’t realize back then was that the story always knew. The story always finds you out.
There’s something almost defiant about the way truth hides in fiction. It’s like a ghost refusing to be forgotten, haunting every sentence you try to clean up or make pretty. When I first started writing seriously, I would spend hours rearranging words, polishing sentences until they were technically correct but emotionally empty. And then one day, I wrote something ugly - raw, unfiltered, and far too close to home. It wasn’t well written. But it was honest. And for the first time, the page breathed back.
That’s when I learned the real secret: fiction isn’t about escaping the truth. It’s about chasing it down through the dark.
Every writer I’ve met - whether they’re crafting fantasy, literary realism, or horror - eventually confronts the same paradox. We invent worlds so we can finally face the one we’ve been running from. We call it “story,” but it’s really excavation. Somewhere between the lines, between the dialogue and the silence, we start digging up the things we didn’t know we buried.
That’s the part of writing no one can really prepare you for, the excavation. You think you’re inventing a world, but you’re really remembering one.
When I began writing Until Time Remembers, I didn’t realize how much of my own reflection lived in the character of Beck Escarra. She was haunted, lost, guilty for surviving something she couldn’t quite explain - all while pretending to move forward. It wasn’t until I reached the end of the first draft that I recognized the pattern: Beck wasn’t just my protagonist. She was the part of me still trying to make sense of time, grief, and the things that refused to stay buried.
That’s what I mean when I talk about “telling the truth in fiction.” It’s not about confessing everything or turning your story into therapy. It’s about learning to listen to what your story is already saying. Because if you’re quiet long enough, it will tell you what it needs and sometimes, what you need.
The world is full of people pretending. But writers? We’re the only ones who can turn pretending into revelation. Our job isn’t to hide behind our stories, it’s to use them as mirrors.
And if that mirror scares you a little? You’re probably doing it right.
Part II: The Author’s Mask
There’s a certain kind of honesty that only comes through disguise.
Writers are magicians of emotional sleight of hand. We build entire worlds just to hide one truth inside them. It’s safer that way, to let a character say what we can’t. To let a ghost whisper what we’d never admit out loud. I used to think that was cowardice. Now, I think it’s courage in another form.
Because the truth is, sometimes the only way to say what hurts is to let someone else say it first.
Every story I’ve ever written has carried a fragment of me I wasn’t ready to name. Sometimes it’s in a line of dialogue, sometimes it’s in the silence between chapters. And most of the time, the things my characters fear, love, or regret are just emotional echoes of something I’ve lived - translated into a language the heart understands better than the mind.
When you write, you put on a mask. Not to deceive, but to protect. Behind that mask, you can finally speak freely. You can let your fictional self scream, fall apart, confess, without the eyes of the real world watching. The story becomes your confessional booth. You tell your truth, but in a voice no one recognizes, except the people who need to hear it most.
And sometimes, that’s what fiction really is: a shared code between souls who’ve survived the same invisible thing.
I remember when I was working through The Day That Broke Time, the second book in my Where Time Can’t Exist series. The character Amber was haunted by ghosts - not the kind that slam doors or rattle chains, but the kind that whisper truths you’ve spent your whole life trying not to hear. Writing her felt like unmasking myself. Every ghost she saw was something I had avoided seeing in my own life. Every fear she carried was one I thought I’d buried beneath accomplishment, logic, or time.
But time doesn’t bury anything. It just waits.
That’s why fiction feels like time travel to me, not just through stories, but through emotion. When we write, we revisit every version of ourselves that needed a voice. Every mask we ever wore becomes a new character, each one braver than we were in that moment.
So we keep writing them. Over and over. Until the mask and the face become the same thing.
Part III: The Reader’s Mirror
I used to think my stories belonged to me. I don’t anymore.
The moment a reader opens your book, your truth stops being yours. It becomes something else entirely; a reflection, a shared illusion that somehow feels real in two separate minds. That’s the kind of intimacy that no other art form quite achieves. When someone reads your words, they don’t just understand them. They remember them, not as something you said, but as something they’ve felt.
That’s the mirror. And it’s the most powerful part of storytelling.
Every time someone tells me that Beck or Amber reminded them of themselves, I realize how little control I actually have over what my stories mean. Because meaning isn’t a single thread. It’s a web, spun between author and reader, held together by all the tiny truths that overlap in unexpected places.
And that’s the beauty of it, the story changes, because the reader brings their own ghosts.
That’s also why telling the truth in fiction isn’t about accuracy. It’s about emotional honesty. It’s not about recreating life perfectly; it’s about recreating the feeling of it. Because when we feel something genuine on the page, we stop being readers or writers for a moment - we become witnesses.
That connection is the heartbeat of storytelling. It’s what makes us human, the need to find ourselves in someone else’s words.
I think that’s why I started creating resources like Telling the Truth in Fiction. Not because I wanted to teach people how to write, but because I wanted to help them remember why they write. The truth isn’t found in technique. It’s found in the courage to put yourself on the page and let someone else see it.
Stories are mirrors, but only if we dare to look.
Part IV: The Anatomy of a Truthful Story
There’s a strange alchemy to storytelling. You start with fragments; a feeling, a moment, a person who won’t stop appearing in your head and somehow it becomes something complete. But not because it’s perfect. Because it’s true.
When I break down what makes a story “truthful,” it always comes back to three things: intention, consequence, and emotion.
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Intention is what drives your characters. What do they truly want, not just on the surface, but deep down where the secrets live?
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Consequence is what forces them to face that truth. Every lie they tell themselves should eventually collapse under its own weight.
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Emotion is what makes the reader believe it. If the writer doesn’t feel it, no one else will.
That’s the foundation of every story that lingers long after you finish reading it. It’s not the twist or the prose or the clever structure, it’s the sincerity behind it. The courage to write something that doesn’t flinch.
That’s also where I’ve found practical exercises to be life-changing. Sometimes you don’t realize you’re hiding from something until you try to write about it. Telling the Truth in Fiction grew out of that realization. It’s a series of questions, prompts, and reflections that challenge writers to uncover what their stories are really saying and what they might be avoiding.
I wanted it to feel like sitting in a quiet room with your story and asking it, “What are you trying to tell me?” Because that’s the heart of writing honestly - listening, even when it hurts.
When you understand your story’s truth, everything else aligns. Dialogue starts to breathe. Scenes stop feeling forced. Endings write themselves, because the story knows where it’s been heading all along.
Fiction is structure. But truth is gravity. Without it, your story floats away.
Part V: The Fear of Being Seen
Let’s be honest, telling the truth is terrifying.
There’s a reason most writers joke about “writing in the dark.” Sometimes it’s easier not to know what you’re revealing until it’s too late. Because once it’s written, you can’t take it back. The words exist now, and so does the version of you who wrote them.
I’ve had moments, especially when writing personal projects, where I’ve closed my laptop and thought, I can’t publish this. Not because it wasn’t good enough, but because it was too real. Too close. Too much.
But then I remind myself: fiction doesn’t expose us; it frees us. It gives shape to emotions that otherwise stay locked inside. It allows us to grieve, forgive, confront, and rebuild - safely, behind the veil of story.
That’s why honesty in fiction matters. Not because the world needs to know our secrets, but because we need to understand them.
There’s always risk in being seen. But there’s a greater risk in never being known.
And maybe that’s why we write at all - not to be understood by everyone, but to be found by someone.
Part VI: Truth as Legacy
When I think about the stories that outlive their authors, I realize they all have one thing in common: they weren’t afraid to feel. They didn’t chase perfection; they chased honesty.
Every time a writer puts a piece of their heart on the page, they leave behind a kind of map, a way for someone else to find courage in a world that often rewards pretending. That’s the real legacy of fiction. Not fame or sales or reviews. Just truth, preserved in story form.
And the best part? You don’t have to get it “right.” You just have to be real.
Because when the masks fall away, when the edits are done, and the book sits quietly waiting for its reader, all that remains is the truth you left behind.
That’s why I keep returning to this phrase, “telling the truth in fiction.” It isn’t a writing method. It’s a way of living through your art. It’s a reminder that every story you write is a conversation between your past and your future, and the only way to make it matter is to make it honest.
If you’ve ever wanted to uncover the truths your stories have been whispering all along, the ones you’ve been too afraid to write, I made something that might help. It’s called Telling the Truth in Fiction. It isn’t a manual. It’s a mirror.
Because sometimes, the hardest story to write is the one you’ve already lived. And that’s exactly why it’s the one that needs to be written.
Writing honestly is never easy. But it’s worth it.If you’re ready to start exploring the truths behind your own stories, you can begin with my workbook, Telling the Truth in Fiction.
- Makitia Thompson
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