Welcome to the Helping Writers Become Authors Podcast. I'm K M. Wyland and I am here to take you

deep with story theory, writing techniques, and the incredible wisdom of story.

I believe story is the greatest power on this earth,

and that as writers, we carry the torch of wielding that power

with responsibility, passion, and skill.

There is no such thing as just a story.

Today, it is my honor and my purpose

to help you write your best story,

astound the world, and maybe change your life.

Hello everyone and welcome.

I am K.M. Wyland.

I run the writing website helping writers become authors.com

and I've written a couple of books you may have heard of such as structuring your novel and creating character arts.

And today we're going to be talking about what is very

possibly the single most important element of any successful story and that is

the lie the character believes. So why is the lie the

character believes so important and what is it? So the lie the character believes

very simply is just a mistaken or limited perspective that the character holds at the beginning of the story, which will be challenged as they go through the plot and in some stories they will overcome it in

exchange for a thematic truth which is a broader and more expanded perspective

of themselves or the world around them.

In other stories, they may fail to do this, and in which case they'd be arcing negatively, probably

into a worse lie.

...