Today I want to talk about a common convention writers use in their stories to build intrigue: unreliable narrators. These add a bit of mystery and often leave readers talking about the story long after it’s finished. But not every story with an unreliable narrator is a hit. Let’s take a look at what an unreliable narrator is, a few types of them, and how to best use one to tell your story.
What Is An Unreliable Narrator?
An unreliable narrator is when you write in a deep point of view that has a compromised credibility. Basically, the person who is telling the story can’t be trusted to tell the truth about reality. He is telling his version of the story.
In a way, every narrator is unreliable as we all have our own perspectives and biases. Sue may think Darrell is nice, but Andrew may dislike Darrell. It’s subjective. However, when we are talking about an unreliable narrator in a story, we mean that person has a strange sense of reality that misleads the readers in major ways. For instance, if Andrew only recounted the times Darrell is mean or selfish and never the nice moments, then he is purposefully leading us to believe Darrell is a bad person. Or, if Sue has amnesia and only remembers her childhood with Darrell, then he may have been nice back then but changed after some major life event she doesn’t remember. Either way, bot Andrew and Sue can be unreliable narrators.
Also, please note you can only have an unreliable narrator if the story is written in deep POV. Only first person or third person limited point of views have readers directly in the character’s head. By seeing the world through that person’s eyes, readers can easily be misled by a character’s skewed view of reality.
Types Of Unreliable Narrators
If you decide to write an unreliable narrator, it’s important to make sure your character has motivations for misleading the readers. Someone who lies just for fun will feel fake. But if there is a reason behind the lies, then it makes the story more interesting. It can be to manipulate someone, to maintain a belief, to feed an addiction, or anything else.
Pamela Koehne-Drube created a list of five types of unreliable narrators. It’s the only categories list I’ve seen on the topic, and I like how it shows not all unreliable narrators are inherently evil. Most like to make the unreliable character a villain, but not only bad guys have twisted views of truth. I’m going to recap her list so you can see what other types you can choose. This isn’t an exhausted list, but I think it’s a good start to make us think outside the box for unreliable narrators’ motivations.
Deliberate Liar
The deliberate liar is a narrator who knows what reality is and chooses to misled the readers for some reason. It’s the typical unreliable narrator that writers use for villains since the lies are a conscious choice. The character can be a smart mastermind hiding under a misleading exterior, much like one of the characters (I won’t say who and spoil it for anyone) in Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn.
Self-Deceiver
The self-deceiver is a lot like the deliberate liar in that he is also aware of reality, but the self-deceiver ignores it. He understands the truth but chooses to believe his own truth. Sometimes these characters can convince themselves the lie is really truth, which makes it even more mysterious for readers as they try to sort fact from fiction. I had a hard time finding a POV book character that was a clear example of this, but I have a hypothetical example from a book. If Javert from Les Misérables (by Victor Hugo) told the story from his perspective, he’d be a self-deceiver who chooses to believe the worst of Jean even though he sees Jean do more good things than bad.
Mentally Compromised
The mentally compromised narrator has some illness or mental block skewing their perspective and making them unreliable. It can be amnesia, addiction, mental illness, or a trauma that suppresses parts of the mind. The Girl On The Train by Paula Hawkins has an alcoholic protagonist who experiences blackouts that messes with her memory. Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk has a protagonist with a mental illness that makes him unreliable. Whatever the reason, something internal is happening to the narrator that makes it hard to tell the true and full story.
Naïve Observer
The naïve observer has a sheltered perspective that makes understanding and telling the reality of a story impossible. The narrator can be a child, child-like, or just kept isolated from the world. Scout in To Kill A Mockingbird by Nelle Harper Lee is an adult narrator who tells a story like how she experienced it as a child. Though her present adult self is there to help fill in blanks for the readers, you can see how Scout as a child saw the world very differently than what it really was at the time.
Morally Ambiguous
Morally ambiguous narrators have skewed values that make the story unreliable for the rest of us with different standards. This can be an incorrect portrayal of certain groups of people, the glorification of criminal lifestyles, or even zealots who seek to purify an evil world in violent ways. They aren’t deceiving themselves into believing a lie about the world. They actually believe the lie. It’s their twisted moral convictions that make them unreliable.
In Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë, John is our POV, but he’s being told the story by Nelly. Nelly believes the two lovers were wicked, and that might have skewed her portrayal of their story to make them look worse than they were. The only reason we don’t take her version for fact is that our POV character, John, seems to think better of the lovers. Yet he wasn’t there, so it’s hard to know whose moral convictions to trust.
How Do You Write An Unreliable Narrator?
First off, in order to write an unreliable narrator well, you must know both the unreliable story and the true story. The fun part with these narrators is being able to tell two stories side-by-side, the false one and the true one. Everything overt that your POV character does and says is the false story. The subtext is the true story. If you do it right, then readers will see things through the POV character’s perspective but understand what is really happening. You can read my post on context and subtext to understand how to do this well. The important part is you know there are two stories and you know all the ins and outs of them both. Only then can you weave in nuances that show both stories and leave the readers reeling.
Create Reality
Beyond knowing what is really happening in the story world, writers need to create a realistic side of the unreliable narrator too. If the character is too far-fetched, it can come across as he’s unrealistic and fake. If readers can’t relate to the narrator, they may lose interest in him and the story. There are three things to establish to make sure this doesn’t happen: credibility, likability, and consistency.
1. Credibility
Not everything in the unreliable narrator’s perspective should be fake. There are going to be things where he can see reality as it is, and that should show up on the page. This creates trust with the readers. If the narrator is a chef and accurately describes how to make the best steak, readers can see his competence. Showing moments of credibility makes readers second guess if they are imagining the unreliability of the character.
If writers want to wait until late in the story to reveal the unreliable narrator, then putting in moments when he’s credible will make the reveal more shocking. You want the character to seem trustworthy so discovering the lies is a deep cut to readers.
If the unreliable narrator is known up front, he still needs these moments of credibility to keep a reader’s interest. Why read a story you know is misleading? Because trying to figure out what’s true and what’s a lie is fun. The readers want to know if they can sort it out. If the narrator never presents the truth though, the game is too easy as everything is a lie.
2. Likability
Your unreliable narrator should be likable on some level. I’m not saying he needs to be someone everyone loves having around or is really nice. Likability is about the readers relating to and understanding a character. There needs to be a connection between narrator and readers so they want to see how the story ends. They may hope he gets a good ending or a bad one, but they are bonded enough with him to want to know the outcome.
A way to make sure your narrator is likable is to look at his motivations. Are his reasons for being unreliable sympathetic? An unreliable child narrator can be very likable due to his innocence, but a killer can be just as likable if his perspective and motivations stem from a human emotion. Protecting loved ones. Anger from a betrayal. Fear of being controlled. These are all things that can motivate someone to kill and still be something the average person experiences. The unreliable part is that the character doesn’t need to go to the extreme of killing because of these emotions. Perhaps he thinks he’s protecting his girlfriend from predators but really is stalking a woman and killing anyone who flirts with her. The motivation makes him likable, but his methods and maybe end goal are twisted.
3. Consistency
The last way to create a realistic side to your unreliable narrator is consistency. I don’t mean the narrator has to be consistent (he may have a mental illness that makes him erratic). By consistency, I mean that you need to set rules to his unreliability and stick to them. If he acts unpredictably, sometimes smashing things, then he can’t stop that behavior part way through the book. Likewise, he can’t lie for no reason (unless that’s his character) but only for whatever best suits his goal and motivations. By establishing some consistency, writers can let readers understand the narrator in a realistic way and not just as some character with random behaviors.
Just as a side note, consistency doesn’t mean his behavior can’t escalate. The rule may be he only smashes things when in a kitchen (due to some past trauma), but maybe as the story progresses he undergoes more stress which escalates his behavior. Instead of just smashing dishes in the kitchen, he starts throwing lamps in the living room. There are rules to his unreliability, but that doesn’t mean they can’t expand and grow as he does.
Create Unreliability
In order for an unreliable narrator to work, readers need to know he is unreliable. Writers must give hints along the way to clue readers into something happening below the surface of the story. Then, depending on the story, there is either a big reveal to show the narrator is unreliable or the story just ends with readers coming to grips on their own about the narrator. Let’s look at the process of hinting about and revealing an unreliable narrator.
The Hints
Regardless of when you want readers to know the narrator is unreliable, there must be hints from the very beginning. If the readers need to know the narrator is not truthful from the start, then make the hints obvious. In order to enjoy the story and the game of discerning truth from lie, readers need to know there is a game afoot.
If the unreliable narrator is supposed to be kept a secret until the end, then write the hints ambiguously so readers miss them but see them later when they look back. Without proper hints all the way through the story, the reveal will feel cheap and lessen the impact of the ending.
Give hints right off the bat, then increase the frequency and magnitude of them. That way readers feel like the more time they spend with the narrator the more they get to know him and see the truth he doesn’t. Let’s look at three ways to hint about unreliability in your story.
How Do You Hint About An Unreliable Narrator?
Exactly how to hint about your unreliable narrator depends on your story, but there is one common factor. Contradictions between people. Since these stories hinge on subtext and readers seeing reality even through the narrator’s skewed perspective, contractions are the best way to show it. Everything is about perspective so the best way to show these contradictions is by putting people and their own perspectives at odds with the narrator.
One way to show contradictions is to let the narrator believe things that contradict your ideal audience’s perspectives. If the narrator says it’s a warm day but people are wearing puffy coats and ice is on the roads, readers understand his perspective is off. Readers pull from their own views of the world, and they know warm days aren’t paired with coats and ice. Similarly, a narrator who says stabbing someone is a way to show love will contradict readers’ perspectives. By knowing your audience, you can unmask your unreliable narrator by challenging commonly held values and beliefs.
The other way to hint with contradictions is through what other characters say and do in the story. Give readers opposing perspectives from the unreliable narrator. What do other characters say and do around him? If there is another POV character, how does she see the world differently from him? Stack up evidence against the unreliable narrator so it seems increasingly impossible that he is telling the truth. The more people who disagree with him in their words or actions, the more it seems he’s wrong. You can also have them behave strangely around him, like they fear him or don’t trust him. Even if readers love the narrator, it’s hard to believe someone everyone else contradicts.
The Reveal
When there’s an unreliable narrator, the writer has to decide when or even if to acknowledge it outright. It all depends on the story you want your readers to experience. Do you want them to spend the whole book trying to discern truth from lies like a game? Is the goal to shock readers with a big reveal? Or do you want readers to walk away wondering what really happened? Once you have an idea of what experience you want the readers to have, you’ll know what to do about a reveal.
When Do You Reveal An Unreliable Narrator?
There are three places you can reveal (or confirm the existence of) your unreliable narrator. Let’s look at each spot and what that place will do for your story.
1. Beginning
The first place to reveal the unreliable narrator is, of course, the beginning. Have the narrator state he lies. Show him observing something that is clearly false, like the warm day example above. Let him overhear people discussing his skewed perspective. By showing his unreliability at the start, you invite readers to a game. Much like how a mystery opens with a question to solve, an unreliable narrator is a question to answer. Why does he have the skewed perspective? How will it ruin or improve his life? What is the real story he isn’t telling? Readers get to collect hints to discover his goal, motivations, and his lies. It’s a challenge to see if they’re smart enough to put everything together.
2. Turning Point
If you don’t want to make your story a game, then you can make the unreliable narrator a surprise. Readers won’t know he’s telling a skewed version of reality until a major turning point in the story. It can happen at the midpoint, if you want to show the other side of the character in the second half of the book. Or, you can reveal him at the climax, making the readers rethink everything they read. By hiding his unreliability until later in the story, you give readers the thrill of surprise. And if you can surprise readers with a good reveal, they often remember the story fondly.
3. Never
The last option is to never reveal the unreliable narrator. At least, not outright. The hints still need to be in the story, but there won’t be a place that confirms he’s unreliable. With all the contradictions, readers can come to the conclusion that he is not to be trusted.
However, if you want to keep the readers wondering, you could also make his side of the story just believable enough that they aren’t really certain. The best way to do that is have another person who seems to be controlling the other narrative, the real story. Then readers wonder if the narrator is skewed or just being framed as such. It can be a fun trick to play on the readers, but it is a very hard ending to pull off well. Just make sure you get many beta readers to approve the ending or you might just have angry readers when you publish the story.
Final Thoughts
Hopefully, this overview of unreliable narrators got you thinking of ways to use one in your story. Even if your point of view is not an unreliable narrator, all people are unreliable because of their own biases and perspectives. Try using some of this in your normal point of views, and it’ll add a bit of realism to them. So, whether you are making a narrator feel unreliable or a point of view character seem realistic, add just a bit of skewed perspective to improve the character development.
Thanks for reading!
Write a tale
Leave a trail