Truth Told at an Angle

Unreliable Voices

“Tell all the truth but tell it slant,” wrote Emily Dickinson. In fiction, objectivity is often the enemy of character. If we describe a room perfectly and correctly, we have described a room. But if we describe the room through the eyes of someone who is terrified, or someone who is falling in love, the room becomes a window into their soul.

Today, I practiced describing a setting “incorrectly.” I let the character’s bias distort the world. A cheerful party became a claustrophobic cage of noise; a simple garden became a battlefield of choking weeds.

The “slant” is where the character lives. We don’t want to know what the world looks like; we want to know what it looks like to them. Bias reveals character faster than dialogue ever could. Describe a room incorrectly on purpose today. Let the character’s emotion warp the furniture.

The Monroe Minute Describe a room incorrectly on purpose to reflect a character’s specific mood.

Until the next page,
Sloane S. Monroe

Sloane Shay Monroe

I don’t write to idealize love, but to explore it honestly, with emotional precision and depth.