How to Run Two Truths And A Lie Sara Shepard Games at Your Book Club or Event
I've run this activity at about a dozen book club meetings and fan gatherings over the years. It comes up whenever someone wants an icebreaker that isn't just "what's your favorite color." The premise is straightforward enough, but getting it right takes some attention to setup. The game is a themed version of the classic party game Two Truths and a Lie, using facts and stories related to Sara Shepard, her bibliography, or lore from the Pretty Little Liars universe. You prepare three statements: two true and one fabricated. Other players vote on which one is the lie. It works for solo reading groups, convention panels, or casual meetups.
Two Truths And A Lie Sara Shepard
Here's how I actually set it up when I'm running the event, not the textbook version. First, gather your source material. You want a mix of biographical facts about Sara Shepard (real life details) and plot facts from her books. Most people only know the TV show canon, which diverges significantly from the books, so that's where the lies hide most effectively. I pull from official interviews, her Wikipedia page, Goodreads author Q&A sections, and the actual text of the novels. Having the physical books or e-reader open while you write statements saves you from accidentally making a true statement look false because you misremembered a detail. Write your three statements on individual index cards or slips of paper. One is the lie. The other two are verified truths. Keep the length roughly equal across all three. If one statement is two sentences and the other two are one sentence each, people will guess based on structure rather than content. I learned that the hard way at my first event. Three people correctly identified the lie immediately, not because they knew the facts, but because it was the longest statement. After that I made a rule: all three statements must be between 15 and 25 words, no exceptions.
Read all three statements aloud before anyone votes. Shuffle the reading order so people don't anchor on the first or last one. Give players 60 seconds to discuss in small groups if you have a large room. Lone voters tend to second-guess themselves heavily, which kills the energy. Group discussion speeds things up and makes the reveal more dramatic, which is the whole point. The reveal matters. State clearly which one is the lie, then give a brief explanation of why the other two are true. If someone guessed correctly, ask them where they got the information from. You'll be surprised how often the answer is "I saw a tweet about it" or "The show said something different." That's a good teaching moment about source reliability, and it keeps the conversation going without any forced facilitation on your part. A common problem I run into is when the lie is too obvious. This happens when the fabricated statement uses language that doesn't match Sara Shepard's actual biography or the tone of her books. For example, saying she wrote under a pseudonym other than her real name would be instantly recognizable to anyone who's read her author bios. The lie needs to be plausible. The best lies sound like something that could absolutely be true. I once used "Sara Shepard worked as a fashion buyer in New York before becoming a full-time writer" as a truth statement, and it was so boringly accurate that nobody suspected it. That's the level of plausibility you're aiming for with the lie too.
Get the Full Details
Another issue comes up with book-specific statements. The Pretty Little Liars series has 11 main novels plus several spin-offs. Details from the later books, especially the endgame volumes, are fuzzy for most readers. Using a minor character detail from book 9 as your lie is smart because people won't remember it accurately enough to catch it. But using a major plot point as the lie is risky because too many people will remember it correctly and the game becomes trivial. I stick to mid-tier details: secondary character names, specific locations mentioned in passing, publication dates, and behind-the-scenes publishing facts. If you're running this for people who've only seen the TV show, adjust your difficulty. The show and books diverge on character fates, romantic pairings, and several major plot resolutions. A statement about what happens to a character in the books will register as a lie to show-only fans, which is fine, but it means you're testing TV show knowledge rather than book knowledge. Decide upfront what audience you're targeting and prepare statements accordingly. The game works best with five to fifteen participants. Anything under five and there aren't enough people to create debate. Anything over fifteen and the voting becomes chaotic unless you split into smaller groups. I've tried it with twenty people at a convention and it took forty minutes because everyone wanted to argue about their answers. Splitting into groups of six reduced the time to about twelve minutes total.
Keep a scorecard if people want to track wins across multiple rounds. It's optional. Most groups play two or three rounds and then move on to discussion. The discussion usually generates more value than the scoring anyway. People end up talking about which book they preferred, which character they liked least, and whether the ending satisfied them. That's the actual payoff of the activity.
What to Avoid
Don't make the lie involve something wildly outrageous. If one of your statements says "Sara Shepard once met Taylor Swift," people will vote it as the lie immediately without considering whether it could be true. The game loses its tension when the lie is too easy. Also avoid statements that require specialized knowledge only a handful of people possess. If three people out of twelve have read the Rosewood Files novellas in detail, you're not running a fair game, you're running a trivia test for nerds. Don't read the statements in the same order every round. Humans have a recency bias and a primacy bias. The first and last statements get more mental weight. Mixing up the order each round keeps it honest. And don't apologize for the lie being hard. If people can't identify it, that's a good sign. The point isn't for everyone to win every round. The point is the engagement and the conversation that follows.
