First of all we are all liars, it begins with self-deception and then moves on up from there. This article is about how to become a better liar. To many this endeavor would seem to oppose reason. In a Kantian ethical system if lying were to be universalized the world would not be rational. We cannot lie all the time and have the power of communication. But I believe in situational ethics and lying is a tool, like violence, it can be used in the pursuit of good and evil. Aristotle who advocated a situational ethic through the concept of temperance or prudence believed that it was really a problem of deficiency and excess of a given virtue. A person who is too brave is a fool and a person who is too lacking in bravery is a coward, the whole point is to find your medium and know what is appropriate. The purpose of this discussion however is not help you know when you should lie but how to be a better liar. As a side bonus you may learn how to spot other liars more effectively. There might arise a time in your life when lying is the best course of action like when a terrorist needs vital information, or there might arise a time when the truth is of utmost importance to detect, either way this guide should provide some insights for these lying times.

Let us talk about lying in folklore. You have probably heard that liars do not look you in the eye, or that people look down and to the left when they are lying. This may be true in some places but is not a good thing to generalize. It is entirely dependent on the culture in which you are in, in some cultures direct eye contact shows respect, in others it is a grave sign of disrespect. Eye contact is not what is important for the liar, it is the engagement with the deceived. Imagine whenever you lie you are on stage, because that is all actors really do, try to convince us of a lie. The best actors are the best liars. On the stage you should always be playing to the audience and never to the script. Each performance is its own unique portrayal of a pre-written masterpiece of a lie we call a play. The interesting thing about plays is that we know the actors are lying to us and actually enjoy it, the more of the lie we believe the more fantasy we feel.

A good liar should first of all have a good memory, or so the proverb tells us. This is pretty true, but the memory should come naturally and there should be little work at recall. This is more of a process and can be made easier if the liar has several lies they typically fall back on in conjunction with other lies. For instance go to a party and introduce yourself to several people with different names. Then when someone calls you on it pick one of them to support and make the other person feel ashamed for being so intoxicated they forgot your name already. The names chosen should be fairly common like Matt or Chris so as the mistake could be understandable.

The first thing to work on is your overt behavior. This is what usually gives a liar away, body language, tonal infractions, choice of language etc. When it comes to body language a good exercise is to google a bunch of images, some should be of idyllic environments while others should be the most depraved grotesque pictures you can find. Then practice looking at them and relaying a specific emotion via facial expression over and over. Try all smiles in reaction to every picture, or all aggravated responses etc. This works better if you have a partner who you pick the pictures for and picks the pictures for you.

The next is tonal infractions. A great way to reduce these is to practice different accents. This should allow you to have a wide enough range of potential tones and train you to maintain tone to a specific character. Also having extra accents might come in handy when trying to accomplish lies, you might even get as good as The Talented Mr. Ripley. More important than your tone though is the language you choose. Try to stay away from passive voice that does not include pronouns. When you do use pronouns try to increase the amount of, “I” “Me” and “My”. This makes you look responsible and assertive.

It is also very important to make sure to tell people what they want to hear. If you make it too good to be true however they will get a red flag for deception. You should formulate some of your own structures for presenting lies. For instance in the Jewish prayer of the Amidah there is a distinct format in how to converse with God. Very loosely; First you need to butter him up, then remind God of the promises he made, then butter him up some more, then link yourself to the promises, then ask for something. Just as prayers are formatted for conversing with God, lies can be formatted for conversing with the deceived. These should be placed to have feelings of sympathy. Empathy is nice to have but does not work as well as sympathy when executing lies because the person makes presumptions about your condition. In sympathy they only imagine how you are feeling whereas with empathy they believe they know what you are feeling. Empathy done right is very powerful but hard to pull off and easier to detect if they drill you too hard and realize hey, that’s not what I felt!

Really only concentrate on overt reactions. A polygraph is much harder to fool than a normal human being as it measures pupil dilation, heart rate, sweat glands etc. These kinds of non-overt behaviors are near impossible to control but with practice you can master overt behaviors such as the aforementioned tone, expressive gesture, and language choices. A final tip is that the more animated you are in conversation, the less you are thinking about what you are saying. If people don’t think you are really considering your words carefully they are more likely to believe you are not lying. So the more animated you are the better, but don’t get too overzealous or they will be suspicious of your excess energy. It is best to let these bursts of energy occur at crucial moments when their doubt is high. The best way to practice this is to pick some of your favorite poetry and try to do dramatic readings with as much animation as possible. Later you can find what looks fluid on you and work it into your deceptive talentry.

And remember, if I am really as good a liar as I claim then perhaps none of this is true… Guess you will just have to see for yourself now won’t you?