Category: Writing craft

After watching an episode of the TV series “Perception,” I became interested in the issue of trust. On the show, Dr. Pierce suggests not only does a breach of trust affect the same parts of our systems that regulate our visceral responses, but we’re also physically rewarded when we believe in something or someone.

So reading fantasy and suspending disbelief results in a physical response of comfort and happiness. Who needs chocolate, eh?

The idea of physical responses explains why I keep exploring the effects of trust and the betrayal of that trust in my characters.

I dug further into the subject. Please note I’m not a psychologist, so what follows is as much my opinion as it is fact. It has been suggested that trust recovery is easiest and strongest if a long, good relationship existed prior to the breach. I believe that tallies with our expectations. The reason may be that once a relationship becomes habitualized, trust responses are automatic. If your husband of twenty years has cheated on you, you want to believe it was a one-off and it’s not going to happen again. They’ve learned their lesson. Right? Without intervention by our rational sides – and well-meaning, interfering friends – we might readily forgive.

However, if the breach occurs early on in a relationship, trust recovery is inherently weak*. This is because our responses are still somewhat under our control and not yet automatic.

What’s worse for an author is that building trust in high-stress and emotionally charged situation is a bitch. Pile on the stress, and our hearing diminishes, our logic abilities suffer, and remembering information becomes harder than driving a stick shift while knitting. According to the Handbook of Risk and Crisis Communication (Heath and Hair), it takes several positive messages to outweigh just one negative message.

Applying this to the lives of our fictional characters, we have to be careful how we build trust believably. The reader feels, or is supposed to feel, with our main character (MC). The minute an unproven character lies – and is caught in a lie – the reader, just as our MC, will be suspicious and write him off.

On the flip side, proving your trustworthiness on the fly goes a long way toward building deep relationships. And by deep relationships I mean those that will survive some form of betrayal. But is it even possible to quick-build deep trust over the course of a few chapters?

Here, actions do speak louder than words.

Management getaways often focus on this. You are blindfolded and told to fall backward, on the understanding a coworker catches you. Why would you possibly do this? Well, mostly it’s down to peer pressure, i.e. the fear of looking stupid if you refuse, plus the rational part of your brain that convinces you the organizers know what they’re doing. So you don the blindfold and fall. Now the pressure shifts to the other party. If Gary from Accounts does his job and prevents you from cracking open your head, your brain is a leap closer to trusting him with more vital aspects of your life. Go, Gary! Repeat such a high-stake exercise a few times, and your responses become automatic. Like it or not, you want to forgive.

Another way of proving our worthiness is by confiding secrets. You’re laying yourself open, risking humiliation – or worse – by spilling all. Ordinarily, building trust this way is gradual, with the revelation about our lives and secrets increasing in importance, until finally, trust becomes automatic behavior.

So if we, as writers, want to build a believable relationship between our main character, our secondary character and the reader, we should combine serious jeopardy for the vulnerable party and a strong, overwhelming show of trustworthiness by the other character.

This danger need not be physical, but it needs to be stressful, and it needs to be based on scenarios where the trust we’re establishing can be tested. The repeated passing of these tests will make trust an automatic response, which is what we want. Throw Mary and Gary into a hell-like world. If Gary supports Mary, saves her from scoundrels, and macgyvers a device that catapults the pair out of the pits of hell, Mary begins trusting him automatically (that is to say even against her better judgment), even if he subsequently lies to her.  

A revelation of a heavy-weight of a secret, and its reciprocation by the other character, could also speed up the process. So if Gary catches Mary sneak into the office at night, Mary will be on the defensive and not trust him enough to tell him why she’s breaking in. BUT if Gary discloses a huge secret about himself, Mary might have the confidence to reciprocate. Once bonded by these secrets, their little alliance will stand square against the outside world. Their trust is strong.

A final word. Trust is also an issue in creating relationships between authors and readers. You can build trust by producing quality books of reliable content. But get it right from day one. Once gone, trust with your readership is not easily regained.

*”Effect of relationship experience on trust recovery following a breach,” Schilke et al., PNAS