“Stay true to yourself,” is a saying that starts off roughly 1/3 of all chick-lit available in your local grocery stores, and 99% of books with pink covers. The saying started out its life as a verse from the bible. However, it was terribly old(e) fashioned and full of itself, thus reading, “To thine own(e) self be true.” This phrase had less meaning in my life than real terms like “default,” “lapse,” or even “fucked.”
On a regular basis, I would come across the saying whilst standing in grocery lines, thumbing through the chick-lit in the impulse isle, and standing behind some dude reading the part of the Bible about “thine own(e) self” being true, and soon I forgot to pay for my groceries because I was not sure if paying was what I did truly, or truly did. I had no idea how to be true to myself.
The confusion ended in me buying the pink chick-lit book. Not of my own free-will, mind you. I had lit the book on fire after being torn apart emotionally by its conflicted, sexist story. The grocery store informed me that it had a stupid “you burn it, you buy it” policy. And one about calling the police, and one about me not being able to return to their stores, and some independent contractors have a policy about serving me with papers that inform me of my newest lawsuit.
I had no idea what it meant to “stay true to yourself,” none. I did try and guess that staying true to yourself meant being who you are all the time, anytime. It was a cure to that existential funk of being what you’re not. I thought up an example of not being true: a whore who wonders if her life is really all in her pants. Such ponderousness is not staying true to her self, I mean whore-self. That’s what I figured, at least.
But the ‘staying true to yourself’ cliché holds so much more meaning than merely accepting the person you are. Staying true to yourself is also the(e) key to creating good dialogue.
The biggest problem I have with the dialogue I read: it sounds like one idiot having a conversation with him or herself. Good character-driven shit will not have one character, which so happens to have several different names and faces.
Good characters tied to a plot need to stay true to themselves. They are who they are; and more importantly, they are not who they are not. They are fucking one-dimensional. Sorry.
If a character needs more than one dimension, then that character is a main one, and either on a journey of spiritual, or personal growth—for you stupid atheists out there. At least I can count on the atheists to stay true to themselves and remain shallow one-dimensional characters.
Yet, “staying true to yourself” is crucial for a story that has several characters. It is crucial because conflict, which evidently is the life-blood of the fiction industry, breeds between opposite poles. Fine, conflict could be between poles and slots if the story features sexist gender roles. But back to the point, if the reader is to understand what is going on in a story, he or she must truly know who they are reading about.
For example: Bob loves pie. The reader now knows that Bob loves pie. No matter what happens, Bob will love him some pie. To stay true to himself, all Bob has to do is love pie. To write a doomsday story, simply place Bob in a room with big, giant pie sitting in its deep-dish pan. And place that pie on top of a big ol’ red nuclear launch button. Bob will go for that pie in an instant. Boom, just like in Raiders of the Lost Ark, certain doom ensues when weight is lifted off of the button that triggers that huge, rolling ball. In that scenario, so long as Bob stays true to himself, he will destroy the universe every-fucking time.
Unless the pie is coconut; Bob hates that shit. This does not mean that Bob is not being true to himself. Rather, Bob considers coconut not to be the stuff that pies are made of. Therefore, Bob is still true to himself, and somewhat metaphysical. However, the fact remains that the pie can be anything. The pie could be gold, silver, sex, booze, anything—except for bisexuality.
Bisexuality creates ambiguity, and ambiguity opens the flood-wall to another key part of excellent stories. Suspense!!
If a character, who got into a mess for staying true to him or herself, is thrown into a situation where their fate hangs in the balance, one thing is certain: suspense is the key role. And perhaps to sell books, that main-character will have some spiritual growth, but only if s/he survives.
WARNING!!
The crap written above is intended for fictional use only. Whatever you do, do not—repeat, do not—stay true to yourself. It limits the complex and diverse person that you really are. And limitations are all fine and good if you're a Nazi. But for the other 99.9% of us good people out there, who just live from day to day, being able to grow beyond who you are will only keep you from being pigeonholed by your enemies.
Fine: assholes would conclude that growing beyond yourself is actually a form of “being true to yourself.” However, if you continue to grow, their ability to define what you have grown into will be outpaced; unless, they’re a real bitch and shoot guns.