I am always curious about how well a person can do the unreliable narrator in a story. How can it work in a story for new writers and old? What would it take to mess it up in a story? Can it be done?
What are the best ways to utilize an unreliable narrator in a story? How much foreshadowing is needed if anything?
I ask this because I am very interested in using this in certain stories. I feel that certain stories work best with the usage of an unreliable narrator. Then again, I could be wrong.
I always assumed it was based on POV, since first person narrators are unreliable by default. I don’t think you can have an unreliable third person narrator, can you? So it’s a matter of whether your story’s written in first person or not. Mine is, so…unreliable. He’s telling his own tale, so when he confesses to the friar that he’s a degenerate or a coward, it’s really his actions that reveal the truth. ÂŻ\_(ď˘)_/ÂŻ
I’m a firm believer that there is 0% reliable narrators. This is fairly confirmed in science: that people’s nature gets in the way of them being 100% true. The difference is that mostly reliable needs to stay “true to type”. If they are the type to deny their desires, I need to show them failing that pretty consistently. If they are the type to rush to accuse, I need them to be proven wrong a few times, in a way that snubs them, things like that.
So, I’m thinking clear tells, that lets you know when and where to expect a self-lie, to a degree.
Now, those who deliberately lie to you, proper use is setting them up to feel like they’re liars, when the time is right.
But since I’m always with a liar of some sort, I don’t have a when, I more have trends.
Generally speaking, you want them to be mostly truthful or you don’t have a story at all. So, some of the conventional rules do apply. I’m just pretty loose with them.
First person, I think, is easiest to do an unreliable narrator situation. You’re in their head. They can tell you anything and you’ll believe it
I read Sadie by Courtney Summers, and it was first person POV for part of it with a podcast as the other part (also first person, I guess), and I could tell where things weren’t being fully said and some things I couldn’t tell if they were true, not even being in the character’s own head.
Sadie kept secrets even from the reader. There were things about her you never learned about, but I could guess some of it from her actions. Even then…
But an unreliable narrator in third person would probably only work if you do close third person. I tried that with my steampunk with dragons attempt.
Jack lies to himself because he doesn’t want to admit, even to himself, about some things that happened in his murky past. He’s playing a character or two throughout most of the story and I tried to make it that he only shows his true self, unconsciously, to a girl called Eli who becomes one of the few people that sees past his façade.
Everything he says is a lie up until the point when he finally begins to pull off some of his masks.
I had to make sure that I wasn’t revealing anything Jack wasn’t ready to admit. I had to pretend to be as much in the dark as the reader would be. But I also had to show the moments of truth. There were slow moments where Jack is not being a character and having a deep moment, or losing control on the situation and his truth shines through.
Oooo unreliable narration is a tricky one. Honestly the only place I’ve seen it done well is in “We Have Always Lived In The Castle”. Afraid I won’t be of much hep with this one
all narrator are unreliable where they are reliable is in telling their pov. an unreliable narrator is one who can’t even tell their own point of view reliably.
for the second - it depends on what is making them unreliable to that degree and having that influence the way they describe things as the work progresses
for the first - you can have the way they describe something clash with what is said/ observed (ie the action) or even just differ slightly as opposed to clash if you want to be more subtle
