THE ICE PICK

Never Be Lied to Again : How to Get the Truth in 5 Minutes or Less in Any Conversation or Situation, by David J. Lieberman. New York : St. Martin’s Griffin, c1998. ISBN 0-312-20428-0. $12.95.

To accurately portray characters in your stories, books on popular psychology are always valuable. You can use such books to create believable stereotypes to populate your story’s background or to make more rounded major characters whether the books are on body language; handwriting analysis; male-female differences; the effects of divorce, adoption, birth order, or a nomadic life on children; or some other hot topic of the day.

This book is particularly helpful. In many stories someone is trying to hide something, and someone else is trying to find it out. Whether it is your hero or your villain who is trying to learn the truth, you can use this book to set up dialogue, to create credible body language, and to make your stories more realistic.

For example, among the forty-six clues to deception that he offers in the first part of the book, Lieberman states that a person being deceitful "will rarely touch the other person. . . . Touch . . . is used when we believe strongly in what we’re saying." You can use such information either to help show that your character is lying or to help your character throw off other characters.

In addition to showing how to tell whether someone is lying or not, Lieberman provides ways to find out the truth "without beating it out of them," tactics which may be useful to your characters whether alien or human. He also includes sections on self-deception and tricks used by people to block your ability to detect deceit.

And while creating aliens or other creatures and different societies, you may want to invent your own signs of deceit for your worlds.

With a book like this it is important to know the credentials of the author. Lieberman is a board-certified hypnotherapist with a Ph.D. in psychology, who offers programs, training, and workshops to governments, businesses, and law enforcement personnel and who represents corporations in various negotiations.

The book is clearly and simply written and loaded with scenarios and examples. The table of contents is very complete, but the book lacks any kind of an index, which is frustrating and means that you are better off owning your own copy, which you can mark up.

It is a fascinating book, and although you may upset your friends and family if they see you reading it, I recommend it highly.

{Published in GPIC, the Oklahoma Science Fiction Writers Newsletter, Nov. 2000. Reprinted in SF & Fantasy Workshop Newsletter, Feb. 2006.}