the moment of truth essay

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How to Transform Your Story With a Moment of Truth

“How can I fix the saggy middle of my story?”

I  love it when writers ask me that.

Why? Because the answer is so incredibly juicy–and it all revolves around the Moment of Truth that needs to occur at every story’s Midpoint.

The Second Act—that longest of all the acts, spanning a full 50% from the 25% to the 75% marks—is largely misunderstood. The setup of the First Act and the Climax of the Third Act are pretty self-explanatory. But what’s supposed to happen in between? How can you come up with enough story to entertainingly fill up such a huge chunk of the book?

The short answer is: structure.

There are more important structural moments in the Second Act than anywhere else in the story. If you’re aware of how to use the First Plot Point, First Pinch Point, Midpoint, Second Pinch Point, and Third Plot Point, you’ll never lack for forward impetus in your story’s hard-working Second Act.

Today, we’re going to take a look at what is, arguably, the most important of these structural turning points—the Midpoint and its Moment of Truth. (Click here for more info on structure in general , here for more info on the Second Act in general , and here for more info on the pinch points .)

The #1 Reason  Thor  Works Despite Its Problems

Welcome to Part 4 of our ongoing series exploring what Marvel has done right (and sometimes wrong) in their cinematic universe. I debated whether or not to focus  Thor ‘s post on a “do” or a “don’t” of storytelling.

This is far from a perfect movie.

• The pacing is wonky: sometimes rushed, sometimes lagging.
• The antagonist—the ever-charismatic Loki—is relatively absent from the protagonist’s main conflict for most of the story, and he fails to provide solid pinch points.
• The parallel worlds of Asgard and Earth are never balanced well in the presentation of scenes.

Thor (2011), Paramount Pictures.

In a lot of ways, it feels like a “small” movie, despite its obviously epic and interstellar stakes. Some people complained that the romance between Thor and scientist Jane Foster was given too much emphasis. Personally, I  loved Natalie Portman in this role and thought she was a highlight of the entire movie— but I don’t disagree because, ultimately, the greatest problem with both this movie and its sequel  Dark World is that it has a muddy thematic focus. What these movies are  really about is family, and Jane, however adorable she may be, keeps getting in the way of that.

In short, we’d have to objectively say the script and its execution are pretty choppy. And yet I still really like this movie. For one thing, it was the movie where the whole cinematic vision of the  Avengers throughline really gelled for me and started getting exciting. I thought the Earthside humor was charming. And, of course, it gets full credit for introducing the single most loved and interesting villain in the entire series.

However, at the end of the day, the reason I like this movie—and the reason I decided to focus on its good qualities instead of its weaknesses—is because I love its  heart . I love its character arc (however rushed). I love the transformation of the protagonist from arrogant, self-centered war-monger to humbled, self-sacrificing, crown-worthy hero.

And most of all I love the Moment of Truth at the story’s center.

What Is the Moment of Truth?

The Midpoint is your story’s second major plot point. It occurs, as its name suggests, smack in the middle of the story. It divides both the Second Act and the entire book into two distinct halves. The first half of the book is all about the character’s reaction to the conflict ; the second half is all about his ability to  take action in light of a revelation he experienced.

That revelation is the single most important job of your story’s Midpoint. It is the Moment of Truth, and it is comprised of two different layers—one pertaining to the plot and the other pertaining to the character arc.

Layer #1: The Plot Revelation

Within the exterior conflict of your story’s plot, your protagonist is going to reach a game-changing revelation at the Midpoint. This revelation pertains directly to his exterior conflict with the antagonist. He desires a goal, and the antagonist has been throwing up obstacle after obstacle throughout the first half of the story. The antagonist has been squarely in control of the conflict, and the protagonist has had little choice but to remain in a reactive role.

Now, thanks to this Midpoint revelation, the protagonist suddenly sees the nature of the conflict much more clearly. He learns the true nature of both the conflict and the antagonistic force. He gains important info that will allow him to finally start taking control of the external conflict—thus allowing him to phase out of reaction and into action in the second half of the story. ( Captain America: The Winter Soldier offers a great plot-based Moment of Truth, which I talked about in this article .)

Layer #2: The Character Revelation

Even as your character has been navigating the story’s external conflict throughout the first half of the story, his internal conflict has been closely mirroring, affecting, and being affected  by the external plot. When he reaches the plot-centric Moment of Truth at the Midpoint (which grants him important new information about the nature of the external conflict), he also reaches an all-important personal Moment of Truth.

Remember, character arcs are founded on the protagonist’s inner battle between the story’s Lie and Truth . Throughout the first half of the story, he has been learning to see, more and more clearly, the nature of his Lie and that, indeed, it  is a Lie.

The Midpoint is where he finally sees the Truth. He still has a long way to go until he’ll be able to fully claim that Truth by surrendering to it and acting upon it. But the Midpoint is where something happens to him that’s so dramatic, it prompts a shift in his personal allegiance—away from the Lie and toward the Truth.

How a Good Moment of Truth Transforms Your Story

Some stories will require a different Moment of Truth for both aspects of the Midpoint mentioned above. Often, one aspect’s revelation will lead right into the other. Other stories, however, will be able to harmonize plot and character into a single Moment of Truth.

Thor is such a story.

Thor’s Lie is that he is a worthy leader simply by right of birth and personal power.

His story is that of growing into an awareness that true worthiness is instead based on personal merit—humility, foresight, love, and self-sacrifice. Worthiness is something that must be earned. Despite getting boxed around by his Lie (in essence, “punished” for believing in it) throughout the first half of the story, he does not come face to face with that Truth until the Midpoint.

After using his old Lie-based methods to batter his way through SHIELD’s defenses on his way to reclaim his hammer Mjolnir and his Asgardian powers, he discovers he can’t so much as much lift his own hammer. He doesn’t know his father enchanted the hammer so that only “Whosoever holds this hammer, if he be worthy, shall possess the power of Thor.”

Thor is  not worthy. That realization changes everything. It rocks his world. It undermines everything he has believed about himself, about others, and indeed about the universe. It forces him to reconsider his old belief—the Lie—in exchange for a new paradigm. As Dr. Selvig tells him after rescuing him from SHIELD, “It’s not a bad thing finding out that you don’t have all the answers. You start asking the right questions.”

Boom. Moment of Truth. Right between da eyes.

3 Questions for Planning Your Story’s Moment of Truth

What should your story’s Moment of Truth be? The answer depends on three factors:

1. What’s Your Protagonist’s Truth?

Can’t have a Moment of Truth without first knowing what that Truth is, right?

Naturally, the Moment of Truth  cannot live in isolation. It is a product of everything that has come before it in the first half of the story, just as it is the catalyst for everything to follow. You can’t just shoehorn in any ol’ Truth. It has to be  the Truth your protagonist requires in order to overcome  the Lie he’s been carrying around since Page 1.

So take a look at Page 1. What’s the Lie Your Character Believes ? What Truth will he need to overcome that Lie?

2. What Is the Key to Overcoming the Antagonist?

Now consider the plot. What is the one bit of information the protagonist requires in order to transform his understanding of the external conflict and allow him to shift from  reacting to the antagonist into  taking action ?

(Note that Thor’s external conflict is not  defeating Loki , but rather  returning home . In reaching his Moment of Truth he  becomes worthy of the hammer—and thus his ride back to Asgard—even though he doesn’t yet realize it.)

Ideally, both the plot and character revelations should be the same or at least lead organically one into the other. If they’re too disparate from one another, then you need to consider whether or not your plot and theme may be too different from one another to belong in the same story.

3. What Is the Best Visual Representation of Plot and Theme?

Once you understand the Truths your character will come to understand at your Midpoint, you must then create a scene to represent them. Your Midpoint will usually be one of your story’s biggest scenes (in Thor , the fight in SHIELD’s compound is one of the the biggest action setpieces in the movie).

Even though the Moment of Truth will probably be a quiet moment of personal introspection, it should be featured within a huge plot catalyst—one that visually and symbolically represents the Lie and the Truth.

James Scott Bell talks about a “mirror moment,” in which the character must metaphorically look at his own reflection and confront what he sees. In some stories, you can portray this outright, either by having the character literally look at himself in a mirror (e.g., Thor sees his battered appearance in a reflective door after he’s imprisoned by SHIELD), or by providing some other visual reflection of his inner battle (e.g., in Iron Man II , a drunken Tony who is using his suit for dangerous party tricks is confronted by his best friend Rhodey , also in a suit, telling him he’s a disgrace).

Note: this visualization of the “mirror moment” isn’t a must; don’t shoehorn it in. But it can present a nice symbolism if handled well.

Once you understand your story’s Moment of Truth at the Midpoint, you already have your single most powerful tool for crafting, not just an interesting Second Act, but a powerful and resonant character arc, story structure, and theme. Think you’re worthy?

Stay Tuned: Next week, we’ll talk about one of my all-time favorite examples of subtext-rich dialogue from  Captain America: The First Avenger .

Previous Posts in This Series:

• Iron Man :  Grab Readers With a Multi-Faceted Characteristic Moment
• The Incredible Hulk :  How (Not) to Write Satisfying Action Scenes
• Iron Man II :  Use Minor Characters to Flesh Out Your Protagonist

Wordplayers, tell me your opinion! What’s your protagonist’s Moment of Truth at the Midpoint? Tell me in the comments!

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K.M. Weiland is the award-winning and internationally-published author of the acclaimed writing guides Outlining Your Novel , Structuring Your Novel , and Creating Character Arcs . A native of western Nebraska, she writes historical and fantasy novels and mentors authors on her award-winning website Helping Writers Become Authors.

This is an awesome article (and series! I’m enjoying them all!). I was thinking about my WIP while reading through this, and at first, I didn’t think I had a lie/truth to tell, but my MC definitely does. This just made it clear. Thank you!

If the character is experiencing any kind of change, then you can bet there’s a Lie/Truth at the heart of it. Identifying them and boosting them can really bring the theme to life.

YES. I love this. And it’s so applicable right now. I’m ironing out the plot-points in my WIP as I go through editing, and this really confirmed the order I set them in to impact the theme. Thanks so much for an awesome article.

Good for you! Getting the order of the plot points right is so important. I’m reading a book right now that placed what should have been its Third Plot Point way too early, and the subsequent story really suffers as a result.

Another fantastico and fun article to read! I’m just getting started (for the last year, eh- hem) writing my own story, and, yes, one can apply this at any point in the process as other readers comment, and in my case, I’m just getting my protagonist and antagonist to begin to think!

Truth! It’s never too late in the revisions to wrangle plot structure and boost theme.

A spectacularly great post! This has truly helped me ‘see’ my WIP character’s Lies and Moments of Truth more clearly. To the point where I believe I’m realizing my MC is NOT the one I thought I was writing as the main protagonist (gasp!).

I may or may not go with this flow and see what happens with this MC change. Or continue to fight it…this post has de-fogged several areas I was apparently having this struggle with, now that I’m seeing the storyline unfold more clearly at the Midpoint with your help.

A true ‘AHA’ moment! Thank you for this, Katie!

One thought: It’s totally possible that the character you originally intended to be the protagonist *is* the protagonist, even if he’s not following a strong change arc and undergoing a strong Moment of Truth at the Midpoint. Rather, it’s possible he’s a flat-arc character –already in possession of the Truth and “offering” it to the other character, who is undergoing a change arc. Just something to consider.

You really make us think these things out, huh?

I’ve mentioned here earlier about how the MC starts out believing he’ll never find a girl, and later it’s that this is the only girl – but there’s a more pwerful theme as well.

Susie defends casual hook-ups with “I don’t have to be in love with someone to have a good time with them. It’s just…sx.”

The MC counters with, “I was waiting for the right person, someone who wanted me as much as I wanted her, so that it would be something special we’d remember the rest of our lives.”

But there’s something I deliberately left out for later. Romance and marriage shouldn’t be about finding the person who makes us the most happy, because true love is putting the other person above yourself. It’s about giving, not getting. Physical intimacy without relationships are all about self gratification.

The song lyrics I put at the very beginning tease that the MC has a very deep wound such that “my apology pales.” My moment of truth will come somewhat after the 50% mark, leading into the climax. It’s then that reality will slap him in the face, realizing the damage his actions have done to her – that it never should have been about him.

There are similarities to “Men, Women and Children.” (I swear, I started my story more than a year before I ever heard of it.) I saw the movie, then read the book (which I thought was very poorly written.) The movie is pretty faithful to the book. Anyway, in one of the multiple story lines Jennifer Garner is a way over protective mother of her daughter Kaitlyn Dever, and won’t let her engage in normal teenage relationships. She finally realizes how badly she messed up when her daughter’s boyfriend tries to kill himself. It was the part of the movie that strayed the furthest from the book, and probably the part I enjoyed the most.

It’s possible the moment of truth you’re referencing here is actually your Third Plot Point , which is the big “showdown,” so to speak, between the protagonist’s Lie and Truth–where he has to definitively pick one or the other. The Moment of Truth at the Midpoint is his big revelation of the Truth , but he doesn’t yet reject the Lie at this point. He spends the rest of the Second Act trying to juggle both, until he reaches the low moment at the Third Plot Point, which forces him to make a tremendously painful choice between the two. This then leads in the final climactic confrontation against the outer antagonistic force.

More to read up on.

Just don’t let the dog eat your homework. 😉

Oh Katie, what if I tell youe that Loki is the protagonist of the avengers? In the end he’s the one moving towards a goal and the superheroes are getting in his way

Ah, but that’s exactly what the antagonist is supposed to do. 😉 The antag and his goals control the conflict, as per this recent post .

My best writing friend and I were just talking about how hard Midpoints are. She said, “For the character arc, I need my MC to be hiding, but for my story, I need her to discover the dead bodies.” I said, “Hiding among dead bodies sounds pretty epic to me.” And voila! She got a great Midpoint and we learned how hard (but rewarding) it is to get both character arc and story arc to align at the Midpoint.

Thanks for this blog. 🙂

That actually does sound pretty epic!

I found your article very helpful. I’ve been on a writing hiatus for little over year as a I contemplated switching genres. I’ve gone from fantasy to women’s fiction. Quite a jump!

So, I struggle a bit with structure because there’s some deviation from formula for the book I just started. POT (Point of Telling) figures in strongly. But I love the food for thought here, and see how I can apply it to a less conventional storyline to make the character arc even stronger. I needed this structural reminder, so thanks for that!

My book opens with my main character finding her elderly mother dead in her bed in the middle of the night. She says she’s not grieving, which is a lie. She says she doesn’t care that her sister will think she’s responsible for their mother’s death. Another lie. I’m anxious for her to come to the realization of her truth, and now I have the tools to help her get there. Thank you!

Yes, the great thing about learning structure is that it provides such a strong base from which to jump into less formal and recognized storyforms. Have fun!

As always, your lessons point me in the right direction. Since my MC is his own pro- and antagonist, it’s a bit more difficult to flesh him and his problems out.

He’s his own greatest enemy after a horrific trauma and the only way he thinks he can cope with it (his lie! Thank you!) is for him to recreate and relive it whenever the stress of an undiagnosed PTSD becomes too much.

Now to word out how the female MC helps him see it’s not true – and for him to accept that. It will be difficult, but extremely satisfying, the clearer the way to the finish becomes.

Before I finished reading your comment, I was going to say that one of the best ways to un-complicate an arc is to figure out where you want the character to end up. But I see you’re already on that track!

So, K. M., you really liked Natalie as Jane? That’s the one thing I differ with you about in this insightful and prolific article. I feel like you are my personal guru (dating myself here) in assisting my evolution from writer to author. Now, I accept the challenge to wield the hammer Thor-like and forage through the bricks and mortar of my plot structure. I identified my MC’s LIE, but now I’m faced with the task of using a minor character and his “love” interest push the MC to step over and through the crumbled rumble to uncover his ultimate TRUTH. I can do it! Thanks for your help!

The Love Interest–in the archetypal sense–is extremely useful in character arcs, since they generally represent the Truth. The protag can’t have the Love Interest *until* he is transformed by the Truth. So the Love Interest alternately resists or supports the protagonist, depending on his alignment to that Truth in any given scene. Have fun!

I’ve been meaning to comment for a while, haha. I read about every blog post of yours when they come out, but I don’t believe I’ve ever commented.

I feel like such a weird writer. The middle is my strongpoint of the story. I tend to write weak beginnings and procrastinate on writing endings, but my middles tend to be packed with action and cascading conflicts.

I think my worry is that my story doesn’t really conform to the standard because what my protagonist discovers in the midpoint is only half of the truth. He basically coasts through battle after battle relying on his friends to win and doing the bare minimum to help them, until the midpoint where he faces the antagonist prematurely and gets his ass handed to him by a guy who should stand no chance. He’s dragged aside, and his strongest friend more or less addresses him as a damsel in distress, and then flies off to sacrifice himself to try and save everyone. The protagonist has a moment of realization where he accepts that he’s been lazy and useless, and his friends aren’t going to survive unless this changes. So he finally stands up to the antagonist, starts using his potential, turns the opinion of his allies completely around and shoots to the top of his antagonist’s threat list.

And they still lose. They’re forced to retreat again, and again somebody stronger takes up the fight to keep the antagonist from winning. Somebody still dies. The protagonist starts to doubt if what he learned was really the truth, or just another lie.

He’s allowed a moment to think on it before he’s forced to go into battle against the antagonist again, and during the finale fight he notices that what he realized wasn’t a lie, but it was only half of the truth. It’s not enough just to work hard–he also has to work smart. It doesn’t matter that he’s willing to use his potential if he doesn’t know what his potential is. The antagonist isn’t winning because he’s stronger, because he isn’t stronger. He’s winning because he’s smarter. So he starts to pay closer attention, figure out how the antagonist fights, what his motives are, what his weaknesses are, and he finally overcomes him in the finale.

I’d like your opinion; does this sound alright? Any advice, if you have time? I really like it, but I kind of oscillate between full of myself about my book and insanely self-conscious about it, haha.

No, no, half the Truth is good! It’s good in the sense that the character’s arc is far from over at this point (the book’s only half over, after all). The character *recognizes* the Truth at the Midpoint. He doesn’t, however, yet fully recognize the darkness of the Lie, much less reject it. You get the full second half the story to finish developing that. So I’d say you’re on the right track.

Thanks, K. M. Your blog is the best writing reference in the cyberspace and I can say that 101% sure. Never let it drop offline, please!

Your post built a query in my mind. My protag (love that word, learned from U =D) lives in an Abstract Reality, which is a reflex of his needs and desires, and then forces from the Real World start to exert pressure on him.

In his Moment of True, the protag will finally comprehend that the Abstract Reality is just a shelter he created to hide himself from Real World problems.

Can I make him react to the Revelation in his own way but keep the Revelation itself to the very Climax? (I don’t want to spoiler that he lives in an Abstract World yet).

Maybe I could handle this with some foreshadowing or symbolism or mirrors or it doesn’t even matter anyway (the story is about exoplanetary exploration) =D

Thanks again for your blog. You are an infinite source of help.

In the vast majority of situations, it’s risky to keep readers in the dark when your protagonist knows something. It feels like a cheat. Readers need to be right there with the protag, discovering what he discovers along the way. There are exceptions, of course, but you have to be aware of the end effect you’re creating in forcing a separation between reader and character.

Great to hear you’re enjoying the site!

Always seems like your articles pertain to exactly where I’m at in my WIP. Do you have telepathic powers?

My anti-hero protagonist is a serial killer who is discovered by my extortionist antagonist and he is blackmailed by her to kill. At midpoint in the story, my protagonist discovers the truth that his split personality serial killer self and he are one in the same and his belief that he is condemed to hell may not be true as he has the opportunity to save the target/victim and defeat the antagonist. He believes that by doing this one good deed at the cost of “losing everything”, some level of forgiveness is possible.

The initial draft sort of just glossed over these “truths” and now I realize that if I flesh this out I can add yet another layer to this story which will up the ante to the plot twist that follows. That’s awesome, yay!

Thanks, K. M.!

PS. I miss your video episodes!

Sounds excellent! Split personality stories are always fun and have the ability to say interesting things about humanity’s dual nature. And, yes, I’ve taken a break from the vids for the being–but all the same info is still showing up here on the blog every Friday!

To answer your question, she’s definitely telepathic. Could be part of some government project. Area 51 maybe?

Why do you think I like superhero stories so much? 😉

Holy batmobile Batman, we’ve just discovered the secret.

Everything hangs on the moment of truth in the middle of the second act. This is great structurally speaking to realize this. Although, I haven’t fully realized it for my protagonist yet. But *this* is the missing piece of the puzzle after which all other dominoes will fall into place.

One word that kept sticking out was *learn*. The protagonist is learning to see clearly the nature of the lie from the first page until he reaches the moment of truth. This is also where he learns the true nature of conflict, the antagonistic force and the info necessary to start taking control in the action-phase.

So does the internal and exterior conflict lead to the plot and character revelation at the midpoint? It would certainly seem so. Well, at least in my limited understanding. It seems that both conflicts work in tandem on the character until he reaches a breaking point. I would think the exterior conflict would force him to begin learning and dealing with the lie leading to the mirror moment. Wow that great! The conflict from the antagonist and anyone in the story would be a catalyst for change then.

Your understanding is exactly right. The external plot is about the character pursuing the Thing He Wants via his Lie, while the internal development is about him learning to use the Truth to gain the Thing He Needs. He often won’t see the connection between these two conflicts until he slams into the Midpoint, where the Moment of Truth makes his internal conflict extremely relevant to the outer conflict.

Wow that’s amazing it’s almost like a conflict sandwhich! I like this intrinsic view of the character arc. I’m assuming this is one the most core elements of a story. Would you say this mirror moment is the most critical versus actually defeating the antagonist? Without it he couldn’t defeat him.

Yes and no. Yes, in that it’s one of the biggest revelations in the story. But, no, in the sense, that every piece of puzzle is equally important. Remove any piece, and the overall pattern doesn’t work.

I think this gives all conflict a nice target. Not to mention significance and a barometer by which we can measure if something is working.

Any conflict that doesn’t work towards the protagonist moment of truth is pretty much useless isn’t it? Or it won’t bear much weighton the story.

Does every arc have a moment of truth?

Yes, every arc has a Moment of Truth, although the person to whom it is offered will vary, depending on the protag’s arc. In a positive change arc, the protagonist will see the Moment of Truth and be transformed by accepting it. In a flat arc, the protag will already be in possession of the Truth and will offer it to the other characters around him. In a negative arc, the protagonist will encounter the Moment of Truth and ultimately reject what he is offered here, leading to his eventual destruction.

Testing to see if I can subscribe to comments.

Like E. A. Anthony, this post is timely. My MC, a P.I., is asked to find a missing American naval officer who has not reported for duty at the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo. Only not one seems to want him found, and the P.I. begins to think he’s a pawn being used by forces greater than himself. This is his ‘a-ha’ moment in the 2nd act – and it took me a while to sort that out. Angry that no one is telling him the truth, he sets out to find out what’s really going on.

Sounds like it also marks a great shift from reaction in the first half to action in the second. Good job!

Hello, I have an important question about my story I can’t seem to get answered. I am afraid that I don’t have enough unity because my book is made of six parts–like six stories. Although I have the same main character and over all villain there are many characters and villains that are only in one story. Also I do have a finale climax, but here are also a small climax in each story. Is this something to be worried about. Will the reader feel like they’re reading six mini stories or a complete novel? Any advice would be appreciated. Thank you.

This certainly isn’t an unheard of technique (although I can’t think of any good examples off the top of my head right now). It’s a more complicated structure, to be sure, since you not only have to structure the individual stories, but also the stories within the overall novel. The same basic overarching structure applies to the book as a whole–with the First Plot Point happening in your second story, your Midpoint at the end of the third, and your Third Plot Point in your fifth story. The sixth, of course, would be climactic.

Hi Stephanie, I realize your post is two years in the past. Hope your story has gone well in the meantime. In Conquest Born, by CS Friedman, follows a similar structure. I believe it was published in 1986 and was nominated for the Campbell award, so obviously it was well received by readers. You might want to take a look at it.

This idea is busting my brain. You said: “Ideally, both the plot and character revelations should be the same or at least lead organically one into the other. If they’re too disparate from one another, then you need to consider whether or not your plot and theme may be too different from one another to belong in the same story.”

You’re saying that the wrong theme in a story can cause a mis-alignment of the plot revelation and MC’s Moment of Truth?

So, if my MC’s moment of truth, his internal revelation, doesn’t contribute toward his ultimate goal in the external conflict, then the theme is probably wonky; not appropriate for the story?

Exactly. If you think of plot as an external metaphor for the character’s inner journey, it becomes clear how closely related the two must be thematically. If they’re *not*, then you end up essentially telling two totally separate stories–and the results are obviously less than cohesive.

I just recently stumbled onto your website. This is a fantastic place. So insightful and helpful. I’m learning a lot. I’m a bit of a late bloomer with writing. For years I’ve had lots of ideas jotted down in my field notebooks, but they were basically a big pile of ideas. I was having trouble structuring them. I come from an animation background and I took a screenplay writing course that was very helpful, but your thoughts and ideas are just fantastic. I have learned so much in the last week reading everything on your site. Using films provides such strong easy to follow examples of how to dissect the process. Writing characters has always been the most intimidating part for me. Putting all this out there it is helping me get a handle on my weak spots. I appreciate you!!

Great stuff!!

Welcome aboard! I’m so glad you’re enjoying the site. Makes my day to hear it’s been useful!

Extremely useful! They way you present your information just works for me.

Thanks again and I look forward to reading your books!

LIke so many before me, you have brought clarity to my story and the structure to finish the final third which I hadn’t reached as of yet. This blog was my moment of truth in writing my bock and I’m working my way to fully understanding the truth in my story.

Thank you for being there for us writers. You are amazing.

I like Moments of Truth wherever they land. 🙂 Congrats on your story breakthrough!

Ohhhh, finally I understand Story! I’ve reached my own midpoint… Stories are the search for human Truths.

My protag’s Lie is a little nebulous at the moment, and I can see that this is messing with my plot development. It’s variously ‘everything loved gets lost’ or ‘all change is loss’ or ‘he can’t survive alone.’ I need to decide which and let it slam the little darling in the face.

Do you ever work with the antagonist’s Lies & Truth, create his own arc that twists with the protag’s?

Yes, definitely! The antagonist’s arc–whether a change or flat arc–can be a magnificent contrast and impact point for the protagonist’s arc. Often, I like to give the antagonist a slight variation of the same Lie the hero believes–and watch him succumb to it, even as he tries to tempt the hero into thinking it’s the best course.

Just saw the new Star Trek movie. Imperfect, but I enjoyed it.

Being a student of KMWU I tried to analyse the film as I watched. The theme could be described as a “Purpose Driven Life.” Kirk, Spock and the antag all touch on this same theme. What do they really want to do with the rest of their life? Where do they think they have the most to offer? What happens if you’re really good at what you do and it’s taken away? Kirk & Spock get the positive arc, and the bad guy goes negative. What the villain believes in I actually agree with, but he’s twisted it to a destructive end.

All I want to say with spoiling much!

I saw it the other day as well. My take on the theme was that it was about the importance of unity–which was the reason Kirk and Spock found purpose and made their end-of-movie decisions–and why the antag did not.

Yes, Kirk & Spock each decided their best destiny was together, as a team.

But related questions –

Do we need conflict to stay sharp, or will we become soft and complacent without it? (Kirk asks if Admirals still fly)

What if you do something you love that makes a difference, but it’s taken away and you’re retired to a corner office?

I found it interesting that the movie was co-written by Simon Pegg, the actor who plays Scotty, and see that he had previously written and starred in “Shaun of the Dead”

Yes, made me wonder if that’s why Scotty got more screentime this time around. Not that I’m complaining. 😉

Nice! For my next story I’ll try a similar Lie for antag and protag. Plenty to explore there.

I noticed that as I played with each of my Lie options, the plot wanted to go in quite different directions. This is helpful in doing some of the heavy lifting, I think, but also highlights the importance of having the right one.

Gawd, now it looks like I’ll have to watch Star Trek to compare notes. Simon Pegg is writing Star Trek? That’s so funny – we in UK know him for rather different stuff.

Whether it was due to Pegg or not, this installment was at least better than the last one!

I’m currently in my second round of editing of my novel, and I’m finding your website very helpful!! Just read this article and I’m still trying to identity all the different parts in my book. I think I know where my moment of truth could be, but it’s a little later in the book. Is that alright? Or does it always have to be in the middle?

It’s best if the Moment of Truth aligns with the Midpoint (or shortly after), because it’s what fuels the enlightened actions and growth in the second half. However, that doesn’t mean you can’t or shouldn’t have *several* moments in which the Truth hits him between the eyes to varying degrees. For example, the Third Plot Point will be another turning point in which the character experiences a profound revelation that inspires him in the Climax.

Okay, that makes sense. In my novel, my heroine is constantly offered the truth throughout the book, but she refuses it until around 3/4 the way through.

I have one more question haha. This is for a totally different book I’m working on, and I’m kind of confused. So I definitely have a Moment of Truth in the book, and the MC is faced with the Truth, and the realization that the Lie he’s been believing is wrong. I’d say that occurs at around the 65% mark. Problem is….when I started plotting the Climax, I realized the character had already faced the Truth and couldn’t do so again in the climax, or it would have been a repeat scene. Then I realized he was believing another Lie that had been hiding all along. Is it alright for that to be the main focus of the climax and not the original Lie? I have my theme and message worked out, and they tie into the climax as well.

The important distinction here is that although the character recognizes the Truth at the Midpoint, she does not yet reject the Lie. She spends the rest of the Second Act trying to juggle the two, trying to keep them both in her life. Then, at the Third Plot Point (75% of the way through the story), she reaches a low point in which she categorically (and painfully) rejects the Lie. The remainder of the Third Act, then, is about her weighing the consequences of the choice she just made and then entering the Climax, where she finally proves (to herself more than anyone) her absolute devotion to the Truth and unwillingness to return to the Lie.

Amazing, fascinating article, as always!! Your insights into the writing process have been so helpful to me in ways that many other resources haven’t. Thank you! 🙂

The story I’m working on is a tragedy, and so I have a few questions about how the Midpoint might change if the story is a tragedy.

I think I read somewhere else on this site that, in a tragedy, the MC will reject the Truth that he/she discovers at the Midpoint, but what would that look like? After all, in a happy story, the discovery of the Truth enables the MC to take charge. So a rejection of the Truth seems like it fundamentally changes how the story can play out. How, for example, do you think the second half of “Thor” might have played out if he had rejected the Truth?

I’ve also heard that if the story has a happy ending, the Midpoint should be unhappy; and if it has an unhappy ending, the Midpoint should be happy. But it seems to me that I can think of more examples that don’t follow this rule than ones that do. Would you say it’s a rather flexible rule?

Thank you!! 🙂

In a Negative Change Arc, the character’s rejection of the Truth means that he instead grasps an even greater Lie, which even though ultimately destructive, will provide him with tools toward gaining his plot goal. More in this series: How to Write a Negative Character Arc .

Either my Moment of Truth is coming too early, or my protag is realizing only half of it. ‘m around 22k, so I probably have enough room to present Moments of Truth for both protags.

Then again, the supposed bad guy also has an arc, but since he’s supposed to be a minor character at the moment, his Moment of Truth might come in either the second or third book.

What an amazing post.

Ee-gads! No wonder it takes so long to write a novel! There’s always something new to learn, if not about your own characters and story, then about the craft of storytelling itself. When do I quit outlining and plotting and structuring and get down to finishing my first draft?

The right amount of outlining varies from author to author. Some authors (me) like to figure everything out in the outline; others prefer to do the bulk of figuring in the draft itself. Ultimately, the answer comes down to knowing yourself and your process–what will best optimize your creativity.

Phew. My main pov is so far away from this. I’m going to book mark this and comeback later first she needs to get to the midpoint… again I ended up scraping the first attempt as it was a jumbled mess. Definitely something to keep an eye on during future revisions. the moment of truth scenes n movies and books are some of teh best parts where the reader and the characters get their “Ah! Ha”, “Wow”, and “Of course moments” too.sometimes it’s “It’s about time!”

[…] Getting the structural elements of our story correct can go a long way to making revisions easier. Angela Ackerman explains why choosing your setting is so important, Roz Morris discusses whether you really need conflict in every scene and disaster in every act, and K.M. Weiland shows how to transform your story with a moment of truth. […]

[…] How to fix the saggy middle? Check out How to Transform Your Story With a Moment of Truth by K.M. […]

[…] How to Transform Your Story With a Moment of Truth, K.M. Weiland, Helping Writers Become […]

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THE RULE OF THE GAME (THE MOMENT OF TRUTH)

In 1929 Wittgenstein saw the Tractatus collapse before his eyes. In the ensuing years (through 1931) he had two things much on his mind. One was what the collapse of the Tractatus showed. With what might its picture of representation (of thought) be replaced? The other was philosophy of mathematics. Here Wittgenstein was particularly interested in formalism of various forms. Which naturally led him back to Frege and, in particular, volume 2 of Grundgesetze. There, I suggest, he found a clue to the question ‘Whence hence from the Tractatus?’. In particular, there Frege floats an idea that for there to be a thought is for there to be its applications (and vice-versa). Such, I will suggest, is inspiration to the Investigations notion of a language game, and for the role that notion is to play in the story the Investigations have to tell. This essay elaborates the story just sketched.

Related Papers

Charles Travis

In 1929 Wittgenstein watched the Tractatus collapse before his eyes. By 1931 the outlines of a new view were in place. One thesis of this essay is that what happened then also changed drastically Wittgenstein’s relation to Frege. The source of the collapse can be traced back to the difference between Russell’s and Frege’s conceptions of thought, or of representing-as, as emerges in the correspondence between these two, between 1902 and 1904. Though young Wittgenstein took pains to hold Russell at arm’s length, what separated Russell from Frege—what Russell failed to understand about what Frege was doing—were so profound as to survive mere arm’s length distances, so that what remained of Russellian influence in the Tractatus is precisely what undermined it. In brief, the Tractatus is blind to the point of Frege’s argument (nominally) against ‘correspondence’ theories of truth. Later Wittgenstein thus emerges as much closer to Frege than his young self. The present essay begins to say some things as to just how. In particular, later Wittgenstein took over Frege’s anti-reductionist (in particular anti-naturalist) concerns. Which, of course, is more than reason enough, if not the only reason, for Wittgenstein to feel alienated from the temper of the times.

Tom Lockhart

According to (what I call) the Explanatory Problem with Frege's Platonism about Thoughts, the sharp separation between the psychological and the logical on which Frege famously insists is too sharp, leaving Frege no resources to show how it could be legitimate to invoke logical laws in an explanation of our activities of thinking. I argue that there is room in Frege's philosophy for such justificatory explanations. To see how, we need first to correctly understand the lesson of Frege's attack on psychologism as fundamentally marking a contrast between justification and explanation, and, second, we must take Frege to be committed to the idea that the laws of truth are normatively constitutive for the process of thinking.

Jeff Pelletier , Francis Jeffry Pelletier , Francis Pelletier

In this essay I will consider two theses that are associated with Frege, and will investigate the extent to which Frege “really” believed them. Much of what I have to say will come as no surprise to scholars of the historical Frege. But Frege is not only a historical figure; he also occupies a site on the philosophical landscape that has allowed his doctrines to seep into the subconscious water table. And scholars in a wide variety of different scholarly establishments then sip from these doctrines. I believe that some Frege-interested philosophers at various of these establishments might find my conclusions surprising. Some of these philosophical establishments have arisen from an educational milieu in which Frege is associated with some specific doctrine at the expense of not even being aware of other milieux where other specific doctrines are given sole prominence. The two theses which I will discuss illustrate this point. Each of them is called “Frege’s Principle,” but by philosophers from different milieux. By calling them “milieux” I do not want to convey the idea that they are each located at some specific socio-politico-geographico-temporal location. Rather, it is a matter of their each being located at different places on the intellectual landscape. For this reason one might (and I sometimes will) call them “(interpretative) traditions.”

Walter B. Pedriali

Journal for the History of Analytical Philosophy, 5(8), 2017, pp. 1-22. Assertion plays a crucial dual role in Frege's conception of logic, a formal and a transcendental one. A recurrent complaint is that Frege's inclusion of the judgement-stroke (the formal counterpart of assertion) in the Begriffsschrift is either in tension with his anti-psychologism or wholly superfluous. Assertion, the objection goes, is at best of merely psychological significance. In this paper, I defend Frege against the objection by giving reasons for recognising the central logical significance of assertion in both its formal and its transcendental role.

Paradigmi. Rivista di Critica Filosofica

Daniele Mezzadri

In this paper I take the opportunity of the recent publication of Pieranna Garavaso's and Nicla Vassallo's Frege on Thinking and Its Epistemic Significance (with whose main tenets this paper is in constant dialogue) to provide an overview of some components of Frege's conception of logic, in relation to epistemic notions such as thinking, judgement, and inference. In section 1 I discuss Frege's view that the task of logic is to provide justification for what we think, and in section 2 I show that this idea plays a central role in his view that logic is normative for judgements and inferences. In section 3 I offer a survey of Frege's manifold conception of thinking. Finally, in section 4, I analyse the relations between thinking and language in Frege's philosophy.

Jamie Tappenden

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The Moment of Truth

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DOI:  10.18113/P8WC77

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The Moment Of Truth For A Character

In this post, we look at the moment of truth for a character and how you should use it in your story.

The Spanish call it  el momento de la verdad . Hemingway made it famous. It is called the  Moment of Truth : the point in a bullfight at which the matador makes the final kill.

It is a breathlessly decisive moment and it is not easy to watch. It is the critical moment when the crowd—and the matador himself—find out if he really has what it takes to make the kill. It is the culmination of a deadly dance between the matador and the fighting bull.

In a story, the moment of truth is just as critical. It is the moment at which you pit your protagonist against his final and greatest challenge. It is the moment when your hero’s courage and skill is put to an extreme test. Will they achieve their story goal ? Do they—or don’t they—have what it takes to make the kill, either literally or metaphorically?

We need these moments in every genre . Here are some examples of a moment of truth for a character:

• Brutal choice.  A young princess must choose between the dashing but unpredictable man she loves and her role as monarch—to be queen, she must let her lover go and sever all ties with him and his family. This is a heart-breaking moment of truth in a historical romance .
• Family blood.  A grieving father realises that he loved the beautiful daughter who committed suicide more than his plain but resilient daughter and his only surviving child. When the father finds the honesty to share this with his daughter, it is cruel, yes, but ends their internecine war. A bleak moment of truth in a drama.
• To kill or not to kill?  A detective hell-bent on revenge tracks down the serial killer who has murdered several women—including the detective’s female partner—to a deserted warehouse. He has the killer at his mercy, a shard of glass to the killer’s throat. Will his rage consume him? Or will he let justice takes it course? This is a moment of truth in a thriller, a moment you could use to show the truth about your character’s morality and strength.

Choose  your moment of truth as a writer.

It doesn’t matter how you approach this moment in your story, screenplay, or novel, keep in mind the moment of truth must be extreme. It must be a critical test. Just like the cruel dance with a bull, it must be intimate, brutal, and deadly. It cuts through the heart. And it must reveal the truth, no matter how bloody or cruel.

• Getting Started – Seven Tips from Famous Writers
• The Locked Room – A simple way to test your plot
• Stamp out that cliché – How clichés and jargon can ruin your writing

TOP TIP: If you want to learn how to write a book, sign up for our  online course .

• Anthony Ehlers , Creating Characters

0 thoughts on “The Moment Of Truth For A Character”

Thanks for posting this. I caught myself at this exact moment in the story. I came to this forum hoping to find some kind of answer to my question and I got it right up top!

My problem now is that my character can (and has) handled the moment of truth, but I’m not so sure the author can.

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The Moment Of Truth Essay Examples

Type of paper: Essay

Topic: United States , Government , Reforms , Nation , Taxes , Debt , Economics , Crisis

Words: 1600

Published: 03/15/2020

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Members of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform of the United States of America have studied the economic downturn experienced by American families for a long time. They defined the reality of the problem and proposed a solution. They noted that the solution would be difficult and painful. The members consist of people with diverse backgrounds and signify diverse areas sharing a united principle that America’s long-standing financial fissure is indefensible. If the problem continues, the future generation will suffer inevitable poverty in a weak nation. The moment of truth is a document that tackles the economic challenges faced by the nation. The document contains an insistent, reasonable, bipartisan and impartial scheme. The solutions include toleration of some of previously-unwanted provisions to achieve an upright concession. The proposed solution does not contain all the answers but it would involve a dynamic participation of all citizens as the beginning of tackling national issues.

The Debt Crisis

The foremost problem faced by the country is the debt crisis that brings the nation to an indefensible economic trail. There exists an imbalance relationship between spending and revenue creation that sways the country to have a huge loan every year just to balance the problem. There is an overwhelming shortfall. There was a twenty-four percent federal spending of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2010. The GDP include the cost of the entire goods and services created inside the financial system of the country. Also, in 2010 the tax revenues rested at fifteen percent of GDP. It was the lowest recorded level from 1950 A bigger fraction of the financial system was allotted to the federal spending throughout the World War II. Moreover, there is less than nine percent budget discrepancy of GDP. The national debt increased from thirty-three percent to sixty-two percent of the GDP in the year 2010, and it has been almost a decade since the financial status of the country was balanced. The war, some economically reckless strategies and a profound fiscal recession influenced the overwhelming discrepancy as the years go by. However the economy improves, the federal expenditure is anticipated to amplify more rapidly than revenues. This denotes that the country needs loans continuously. The continuity of the existing condition will mean that the shortage will stay elevated all through and past the decade. The money owing will coil progressively, getting ninety percent of the GDP in the year 2020 as projected by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). Economic revitalization will only allow a recovery of the deficit circumstances for a while as the revenues rise. The federal debt height is untenable. As a result of making it more costly for private sectors and businesses to innovate, lift capital, and generate employments, the mounting debt might decrease per person in the GDP. Every American citizen’s part of the national economy will be decreased to fifteen percent in 2030. It will compel interest rates to go up for the entire borrowers and restrain economic expansion by swarming out private ventures. The debt will deprive the government of the resources required to take action to upcoming emergencies and provide in other precedence. The growing debt will further constrain the government, and the spending is repeatedly exploited to answer to immediate monetary needs like during wars or depressions. The national government may perhaps acquire complexity loaning funds at a reasonably priced interest rate that will further avoid the nation from successful counters to the problems if the national debt increases. The debt crises will also situate the nation in jeopardy because it exposes America to overseas creditors. The foreign creditors presently possess the large part of the communal liability. The interest that the nation is paying the foreign creditors diminishes the nations’ quality of life. China holds the largest part of America’s debt and unfortunately, it does not have similar desires and tactical schemes as America. The inventors have the possibility to mislay assurance to America about its ability to return the borrowed money. This situation calls for the implementation of the most rigorous of austerity procedures. The major concern about the debt crisis is its tendency to be stabilized as just a part of the national economy if it remains rising as the projection of the debts’ exact level that would prompt the crisis is hard. A stable debt is more preferable than a rising debt as far as investors are concerned. The CBO stated that it is not distinguishable for a debt to be identified as impending but it is clear that higher debts means bigger possibility of crisis. Procrastination will only lead to an inevitable booming of the crisis and the possibility of giving the cure will be smaller. Responsible governance requires immediate actions for the debt crisis.

The Proposed Solution

The Moment of truth proposed solutions for the debt crisis. It consists of six parts that will hopefully guide the nation to recovery. The plan intends to recover the nations’ economic health, uphold profitable growth, and defend the most susceptible part of the nation. The plan’s objectives were to attain a debt reduction of about $4 trillion in 2020. This is more than anything compared to whichever endeavor in American history. By 2015, the discrepancy must be reduced to 2.3% of GDP or 2.4% of GDP without the Social Security reform. Moreover, the plan also aims to reduce tax rates instantaneously and put an end to the AMT as well as incise the backdoor tax code expenditures. The plan would also restrict the proceeds at 21% of GDP to acquire expenses fewer than 22%, and in due course restrict the expenditure up to 21%. Stabilization of the debt in 2014 is also an objective of the proposal along with the reduction of debt to sixty percent of GDP in 2023 and forty percent in 2035. The plan consists of six components. These components are discretionary spending cuts, comprehensive tax reform, health care cost containment, mandatory savings, social security reforms to ensure long-term solvency and reduce poverty, and lastly the process changes. The discretionary spending cuts endorse hard-hitting unrestricted expenditure caps to oblige financial plan regulation in legislature. They comprise implementation methods to provide the restrictions emphasis. The cuts on discretionary spending will create noteworthy cuts in both non-security and security expenditures by means of cutting non-prioritized agenda and reforming government procedures. The expenditure trail suggested by the Commission is not just numbers but rather visualization the future that reflects the priorities and values of the American populace. Investing to the future must be constant but must not weaken investments by means of leaving the next generation forthcoming liabilities they cannot pay back. The spending cuts will require a more organized administration that spends intelligently, expends people’s valuable income tax dollars soundly, and is apparent and responsible for every value of the money. Comprehensive Tax Reform immediately widen the foundation, decreases rates, decrease the shortage and abridge the tax code by diminishing the countless tax spending. This reform would make the country more aggressive, and limit income to evade extreme taxation. The present individual income tax arrangement is completely perplexing and problematical. The Commission concluded that the taxpayers knew the present income tax is essentially inequitable, excessively multifaceted, and needs reform. Health Care Cost Containment gives genuine and practical reforms to medical expenditures. Federal health care expenditure is the principal fiscal dispute in many years. The health insurance substitution subventions will cultivate from six percent of GDP to ten percent from 2010 to 2035. The mandatory savings programs are not the major factors of the booming debt crisis but still needs to be in an appropriate path. The goal of the commission for reforming these policies are to defend the disadvantaged, stop extravagant expenditures and search for private sectors. Social Security is the baseline of economic protection and it is more than a retirement plan; it ought to be protected. Social Security Reforms ensures long-standing solvency and decrease scarcity. The sixth component of the plan is the process changes which are about the reformation of the budget procedure to guarantee the stability of debts and control expenditures.

Under the tax reform was the proposed chained consumer price index (CPI). This indexing government benefits aims to guarantee the reflection of transformations in cost of living. But t he present law is not successful in monitoring the inflation. The chained CPI is a closer estimation of cost of living. Approving it for indexation will signify a more precise and efficient action to preserve the value of expenditure programs and tax reforms. If the lawmakers are not able to agree regarding the technical changes to improve the estimation of inflation, the attempt to achieve goals is depressing. The Simpson-Bowles proposals were not lay to a vote in Congress. The failure to control the debt crisis is robbing the people the capability to invest for upcoming needs and challenges. It is critical that leaders from different parties help each other to arrange the fiscal house to aim for unified goals. Parties should move out from comfort zones and embrace changes even if it would be painful in some parts. Stabilization of the debt crisis must be the priority.

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the moment of truth

This page is about the idiom the moment of truth

The moment of truth is a time when the truth about something is revealed, or when an important decision is made.

Moment of Truth

History and australia’s future.

Australia is on the brink of momentous change, but only if our citizens and politicians can come to new terms with the past.

In this inspiring essay, Mark McKenna considers the role of history in making and unmaking the nation. From Captain Cook to the frontier wars, from Australia Day to the Uluru Statement, we are seeing passionate debates and fresh recognitions. McKenna argues that it is time to move beyond the history wars, and that truth-telling about the past will be liberating and healing. This is a superb account of a nation’s moment of truth.

“The time for pitting white against black, shame against pride, and one people’s history against another’s, has had its day. After nearly fifty years of deeply divisive debates over the country’s foundation and its legacy for Indigenous Australians, Australia stands at a crossroads – we either make the commonwealth stronger and more complete through an honest reckoning with the past, or we unmake the nation by clinging to triumphant narratives in which the violence inherent in the nation’s foundation is trivialised.”— Mark McKenna, Moment of Truth

Correspondence discussing Quarterly Essay 69,  Moment of Truth :

• Megan Davis
• Michael Cooney
• Russel Marks

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mark McKenna is one of Australia’s leading historians, based at the University of Sydney. He is the author of several prize-winning books, most recently a biography of historian Manning Clark, An Eye for Eternity: The Life of Manning Clark, which won the Prime Minister’s award for non-fiction and the Victorian, NSW and South Australian premiers’ non-fiction awards.

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The moment of truth

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• November 30, 2016

Post-Truth and Its Consequences: What a 25-Year-Old Essay Tells Us About the Current Moment

“we are rapidly becoming prototypes of a people that totalitarian monsters could only drool about in their dreams,” a  nation writer said in 1992..

The revelations that President Nixon and members of his Cabinet were a bunch of cheap crooks rightly sickened and disgusted the nation. But truth prevailed and a once-again proud nation proudly patted itself on the back; despite the crimes committed in the highest office in our land, our system of government worked. Democracy triumphed. But in the wake of that triumph something totally unforeseen occurred. Either because the Watergate revelations were so wrenching and followed on the heels of the war in Vietnam, which was replete with crimes and revelations of its own, or because Nixon was so quickly pardoned, we began to shy away from the truth. We came to equate truth with bad news and we didn’t want bad news anymore, no matter how true or vital to our health as a nation. We looked to our government to protect us from the truth.

We are rapidly becoming prototypes of a people that totalitarian monsters could only drool about in their dreams. All the dictators up to now have had to work hard at suppressing the truth. We, by our actions, are saying that this is no longer necessary, that we have acquired a spiritual mechanism that can denude truth of any significance. In a very fundamental way we, as a free people, have freely decided that we want to live in some post-truth world.

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Moment of truth : history and Australia's future / Mark McKenna

• Carlton, VIC : Black Inc., 2018
• 139 pages ; 24 cm.

Australia is on the brink of momentous change, but only if its citizens and politicians can come to new terms with the past. In this inspiring essay, Mark McKenna considers the role of history in making and unmaking the nation. From Captain Cook to the frontier wars, from Australia Day to the Uluru Statement, we are seeing passionate debates and fresh recognitions. McKenna argues that it is time to move beyond the history wars, and that truth-telling about the past will be liberating and healing. This is a superb account of a nation’s moment of truth. "The time for pitting white against black, shame against pride, and one people’s history against another's, has had its day. After nearly fifty years of deeply divisive debates over the country's foundation and its legacy for Indigenous Australians, Australia stands at a crossroads – we either make the commonwealth stronger and more complete through an honest reckoning with the past, or we unmake the nation by clinging to triumphant narratives in which the violence inherent in the nation’s foundation is trivialised." Mark McKenna, Moment of Truth.

• Cover title.
• Includes bibliographical references (pages 77-86).
• Aboriginal Australians -- History
• Aboriginal Australians, Treatment of
• Aboriginal Australians -- Social conditions
• Indigenous peoples -- Australia -- History
• Australia -- History -- 1788-1900
• Australia -- History -- 20th century
• Australia -- History -- 21st century
• Australia -- Race relations
• Australia -- Economic conditions
• Australia -- Politics and government
• Australia -- Social conditions

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The Moment of Truth

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• Mark Sinclair  

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The preceding chapter of this study showed that despite Heidegger’s charge in 1927 concerning the naivety of Greek ontology, the analytic of Dasein is nourished by an appropriation of Aristotle’s account of movement. The question of movement, however, is but one aspect of Heidegger’s positive appropriation of Aristotle in the dismantling return of the early 1920s. The texts from this period show that the elaboration of the analytic of Dasein draws, in addition, from the richness of the anthropology inherent in Aristotle’s practical writings. In particular, the essay of 1922, Phenomenological Interpretations with Respect to Aristotle , shows that Aristotle’s account of phronesis or prudence is of fundamental importance for the analysis of Dasein’s authenticity, its authentic appropriation of itself as a being-possible. This would mean, then, that in the course of the 1920s Heidegger would have developed one aspect of Aristotle’s determination of human being as a remedy to the ontological naivety and inauthenticity concerning human being from which it itself would suffer. If not exactly a ‘paradox’, 1 this is certainly remarkable.

The supposed clarity of we moderns rests only on the fact that we have done away with the problems [G21 168].

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Jacques Derrida, La Voix et le Phénomène , Presses Universitaires de France, Paris, 1967.

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© 2006 Mark Sinclair

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Sinclair, M. (2006). The Moment of Truth. In: Heidegger, Aristotle and the Work of Art. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230625075_5

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The American Abyss

A historian of fascism and political atrocity on Trump, the mob and what comes next.

The police forced the crowd out of the Capitol building after facing off in the Rotunda, Jan. 6, 3:40 p.m. Credit... Ashley Gilbertson/VII, for The New York Times

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By Timothy Snyder

• Published Jan. 9, 2021 Updated Dec. 28, 2021

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When Donald Trump stood before his followers on Jan. 6 and urged them to march on the United States Capitol, he was doing what he had always done. He never took electoral democracy seriously nor accepted the legitimacy of its American version.

Even when he won, in 2016, he insisted that the election was fraudulent — that millions of false votes were cast for his opponent. In 2020, in the knowledge that he was trailing Joseph R. Biden in the polls, he spent months claiming that the presidential election would be rigged and signaling that he would not accept the results if they did not favor him. He wrongly claimed on Election Day that he had won and then steadily hardened his rhetoric: With time, his victory became a historic landslide and the various conspiracies that denied it ever more sophisticated and implausible.

People believed him, which is not at all surprising. It takes a tremendous amount of work to educate citizens to resist the powerful pull of believing what they already believe, or what others around them believe, or what would make sense of their own previous choices. Plato noted a particular risk for tyrants: that they would be surrounded in the end by yes-men and enablers. Aristotle worried that, in a democracy, a wealthy and talented demagogue could all too easily master the minds of the populace. Aware of these risks and others, the framers of the Constitution instituted a system of checks and balances. The point was not simply to ensure that no one branch of government dominated the others but also to anchor in institutions different points of view.

In this sense, the responsibility for Trump’s push to overturn an election must be shared by a very large number of Republican members of Congress. Rather than contradict Trump from the beginning, they allowed his electoral fiction to flourish. They had different reasons for doing so. One group of Republicans is concerned above all with gaming the system to maintain power, taking full advantage of constitutional obscurities, gerrymandering and dark money to win elections with a minority of motivated voters. They have no interest in the collapse of the peculiar form of representation that allows their minority party disproportionate control of government. The most important among them, Mitch McConnell , indulged Trump’s lie while making no comment on its consequences.

Yet other Republicans saw the situation differently: They might actually break the system and have power without democracy. The split between these two groups, the gamers and the breakers, became sharply visible on Dec. 30, when Senator Josh Hawley announced that he would support Trump’s challenge by questioning the validity of the electoral votes on Jan. 6. Ted Cruz then promised his own support, joined by about 10 other senators. More than a hundred Republican representatives took the same position. For many, this seemed like nothing more than a show: challenges to states’ electoral votes would force delays and floor votes but would not affect the outcome.

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Of Truth, by Francis Bacon

De Agostini Picture Library / Getty Images

• An Introduction to Punctuation
• Ph.D., Rhetoric and English, University of Georgia
• M.A., Modern English and American Literature, University of Leicester
• B.A., English, State University of New York

"Of Truth" is the opening essay in the final edition of the philosopher, statesman, and jurist Francis Bacon's "Essays or Counsels, Civil and Moral" (1625). In this essay, as Roosevelt University associate professor of philosophy Svetozar Minkov points out, Bacon addresses the question of "whether it is worse to lie to others or to oneself—to possess truth (and lie, when necessary, to others) or to think one possesses the truth but be mistaken and hence unintentionally convey falsehoods to both oneself and to others" ("Francis Bacon's 'Inquiry Touching Human Nature,'" 2010).

Below, find the full text of Francis Bacon 's essay "Of Truth", in which he argues that people have a natural inclination to lie to others: "a natural though corrupt love, of the lie itself."

"What is truth?" said jesting Pilate, and would not stay for an answer. Certainly, there be that delight in giddiness, and count it a bondage to fix a belief, affecting free-will in thinking as well as in acting. And though the sects of philosophers of that kind be gone, yet there remain certain discoursing wits which are of the same veins, though there be not so much blood in them as was in those of the ancients. But it is not only the difficulty and labor which men take in finding out of truth, nor again that when it is found it imposeth upon men's thoughts, that doth bring lies in favor, but a natural though corrupt love of the lie itself. One of the later school of the Grecians examineth the matter, and is at a stand to think what should be in it, that men should love lies where neither they make for pleasure, as with poets, nor for advantage, as with the merchant; but for the lie's sake. But I cannot tell: this same truth is a naked and open daylight that doth not show the masques and mummeries and triumphs of the world half so stately and daintily as candle-lights. Truth may perhaps come to the price of a pearl that showeth best by day; but it will not rise to the price of a diamond or carbuncle, that showeth best in varied lights. A mixture of a lie doth ever add pleasure. Doth any man doubt that if there were taken out of men's minds vain opinions, flattering hopes, false valuations, imaginations as one would, and the like, but it would leave the minds of a number of men poor shrunken things, full of melancholy and indisposition, and unpleasing to themselves? One of the fathers, in great severity, called poesy vinum daemonum [the wine of devils] because it filleth the imagination, and yet it is but with the shadow of a lie. But it is not the lie that passeth through the mind, but the lie that sinketh in and settleth in it that doth the hurt, such as we spake of before. But howsoever these things are thus in men's depraved judgments and affections, yet truth, which only doth judge itself, teacheth that the inquiry of truth, which is the love-making or wooing of it; the knowledge of truth, which is the presence of it; and the belief of truth, which is the enjoying of it, is the sovereign good of human nature. The first creature of God in the works of the days was the light of the sense; the last was the light of reason; and his Sabbath work ever since is the illumination of his spirit. First he breathed light upon the face of the matter, or chaos; then he breathed light into the face of man; and still he breatheth and inspireth light into the face of his chosen. The poet that beautified the sect that was otherwise inferior to the rest, saith yet excellently well, "It is a pleasure to stand upon the shore, and to see ships tossed upon the sea; a pleasure to stand in the window of a castle, and to see a battle and the adventures thereof below; but no pleasure is comparable to the standing upon the vantage ground of truth (a hill not to be commanded, and where the air is always clear and serene), and to see the errors and wanderings and mists and tempests in the vale below"*; so always that this prospect be with pity, and not with swelling or pride. Certainly it is heaven upon earth to have a man's mind move in charity, rest in providence, and turn upon the poles of truth.

To pass from theological and philosophical truth to the truth of civil business: it will be acknowledged, even by those that practice it not, that clear and round dealing is the honor of man's nature, and that mixture of falsehood is like alloy in coin of gold and silver, which may make the metal work the better, but it embaseth it. For these winding and crooked courses are the goings of the serpent, which goeth basely upon the belly and not upon the feet. There is no vice that doth so cover a man with shame as to be found false and perfidious; and therefore Montaigne saith prettily, when he inquired the reason why the word of the lie should be such a disgrace and such an odious charge. Saith he, "If it be well weighed, to say that a man lieth, is as much as to say that he is brave towards God, and a coward towards man." For a lie faces God, and shrinks from man. Surely the wickedness of falsehood and breach of faith cannot possibly be so highly expressed as in that it shall be the last peal to call the judgments of God upon the generations of men: it being foretold that when Christ cometh, "He shall not find faith upon the earth."

*Bacon's paraphrase of the opening lines of Book II of "On the Nature of Things" by Roman poet Titus Lucretius Carus.

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