Characters Lie to You. - Writing Advice

One thing I am finding out really well is that when writing stories, your characters will lie to you, the writer. As much as, or even more than, a politician lies to folks on the campaign trail. The more developed the character is in my head, the better the lies are, thus sometimes those sneak past me onto the page, causing "Continuity" issues.

Case in point. There is a story (novella, actually) almost finished whose MC in other stories lies about that situation a lot, I am finding. Or he told me a tall tale in this work. Either way, it's back to the notes and drafts to fix things, which leaves me wanting to strangle folks who live in my head. I should be used to this by now. After all, Billenius is notorious for trying to put a better spin on things when I tell his tales, and only gives me the Truth after having his pastry supply threatened.

So, one bit of advice I can offer to other writers is this: Hook the buggers up to a lie detector or subcontract Tomas de Torquemada to verify what your characters tell you about their adventures first time around. Saves time and ink, as well as being "green" where paper usage is involved.