Week 4: The Story Is Lying

Before the session#

Bring simple materials for a four-page (or four-panel, four-spread) story — paper, pens, scissors and old magazines, or your phone. This is a small, quick story, not a finished book.

Read Me Twice#

This is the main studio activity. Build a four-page, or four page-like unit, micro-story that:

• sets up one initial assumption on the first read — Interpretation A;
• includes at least one clue, visible before the reveal, that a careful reader could notice;
• delivers a reveal or reversal that changes what an earlier page means;
• still makes sense on a second read under the new interpretation — Interpretation B.

This isn’t asking for a dramatic plot twist, polished illustration, or complicated writing. Four rough pages that control what the reader assumes, then correct it, is enough.

Test it#

Read your four pages yourself, or better, hand them to someone else, and check:

First reading

• What did you think was happening?
• What made you think that?

After the reveal

• What changed?
• Which earlier detail now means something different?

Rereading

• Was the clue actually there, or did it only feel that way in hindsight?
• Does Interpretation B actually fit the earlier pages, or does it need new information you never showed?

If the reveal only works because something completely new shows up at the end, go back and plant it earlier instead.

This Week’s Misbehaviour — Fool Someone#

A separate 15–30 minute experiment from Read Me Twice, not a second micro-story:

• make one small piece — a single spread, an image-text pairing, or a very short sequence — designed to make someone form one specific wrong assumption;
• show it to another person without explaining the trick;
• record what you expected them to assume, what they actually assumed, and which detail caused it.

This isn’t about embarrassing anyone. It’s a quick, low-risk test of how much control you actually have over what a reader assumes.

Afterwards#

Add your four pages and your Fool Someone notes to your Misbehaviour Toolbox. Week 3 showed that words and pictures can tell a reader different things. Week 4 used that same gap, plus withheld information and point of view, to control what the reader believes until a reveal changes it. Next week looks at what happens when a second story is running quietly in the background of the one the reader thinks they’re reading.

The spec

What you bring to the session. Written so a reader can tell whether it has been met without asking you.

• you have a four-page micro-story that supports two different interpretations
• you can point to at least one clue that was available before the reveal
• rereading the earlier pages still makes sense under the second interpretation
• you have completed this week's Misbehaviour, Fool Someone