![]() ![]() This is because this narrowest lens is the easiest to utilise with the ‘unreliable narrator’ tool. The Unreliable Narrator and First Person POV:įirst person is the most common POV for an unreliable narrator. In the POV sections below, I’ve put the POV-relevant pronouns in bold and ‘single quotes’ to help you identify which you would use in each instance. ![]() And, in fiction, unlike the real world, you–the writer–get to choose the consequences ! The exact same thing applies to the people we create in our stories.Īny person we make up can act and behave any way we want them to, including just like a person in the real world. Just because someone asserts something to us doesn’t mean it’s accurate or true. The trick is to lie convincingly without introducing a character/POV that can give the game away … until you’re ready to drop that bombshell. But you can also utilise second person and third person close/limited. With this widest lens, your reader has a broader field of vision, which makes it nigh on impossible to lie to them because someone, at some point, knows what’s going on and will give the game away.įirst person POV is easiest for using an unreliable narrator. The only exception to this is where you’re writing in third person omniscient/distant. They only know as much as the character knows, until they jump into a new head. No matter what the lens, every reader relies upon the narrator/character to tell them about the invented world and what’s going on. If they are well written, they can be powerful, clever, and fascinating.”įrom Writers Write: The 9 Types of Unreliable Narrator The one thing they have in common is that they are deceptive.” “If unreliable narrators are badly crafted, they can be obvious, manipulative, misleading, confusing, and pretentious. They can be comical or absurd, tragic or serious, terrifying or surreal. “These narrators may be insane, angry, strung-out on drugs or alcohol, naive, foreign, criminals, liars, or simply younger than everybody else. The main point is that the information they pass on to your reader isn’t reliable or accurate, and all without your reader knowing this. It could be that they have misinterpreted events or have been lied to themselves. This unreliable person might not even mean to lie. Such a person presents facts, opinions, and conclusions that aren’t, necessarily, consistent with the actuality of the world and events in the novel. Booth in his 1961 book, The Rhetoric of Fiction.Īn unreliable narrator is a character or commentator in the story who can lie to the reader, and often, themselves. The term ‘unreliable narrator’ was first coined by literary critic Wayne C. However, as this post will explore, us writers have alternative options we can choose to use. The First Person lens/POV choice has often been touted as the only point of view for employing an unreliable narrator. Hi SErs! It’s a day of Harmony here at Story Empire □ Today, I’d like to talk about how to write Point of View (POV), and how to use your chosen lens, when employing an unreliable narrator in your story. ![]()
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