Read a great article in Woman’s World magazine by Barabra Hustedt Crook titled: Be a Human Lie Detector.
This is great for real life AND in your writing. How does cop know the suspect is lying or the girlfriend know her boyfriend is being shady? Here is what Crook covered…
1) The liar’s lean - People tend to lean forward rather than away from their audience when they are fibbing.
2) Too much eye contact. This is a relief to me since I know I’m not an eye contact type of person – and always thought that it made me look guilty – but according to the study a liar has to struggle to maintain the lie their upper body freezes up – they won’t blink as often or shift their eyes only 40% or less of the time.
3) Lip licking/swallowing – when a person lies it causes the body to pump out adrenaline, which dries out the mouth
4) Not using contractions – remember the famous – “I did not have sexual…” - if only he used the word didn’t instead – lol
5) Nose rubbing – blood rushes to the nose under the stress of lying
6) A lot of detail – they pepper the story with details and try to skip over the details of the main event
7) Changing the Subject
There you have it. I hope you can use this in both your real and fiction worlds!
Wait let me add one more - #8 - A mother's instinct - we are the original human lie detector - at least of the littlest humans.
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