Unreliable narrators and POV http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/writing-101/threads/49539 Chamomile-tea I've got an idea for a story with an unreliable narrator, but I'm not sure what to do about POV. It's the sort of story where it starts out seeming that certain things are actually happening to the MC, but gradually there are cracks that start to show in the MCs behaviour that will hopefully cause the reader to question whether in fact some of what is happening is actually delusions on the MCs part. What I'm wondering though is if I'd have to write in first person for that sort of unreliable narrator to work? I'm not all that comfortable in first person and I'm more used to writing third limited, but I'm just not sure that there would be that same sense of ambiguity in third person. Wed, 25 Jan 2012 05:57:12 -0500 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/writing-101/threads/49539?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1090154 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/writing-101/threads/49539?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1090154 golfgal08 I would think you could probably pull it off in third person limited, as long as you're careful about it. The best suggestion I can come up with is to find some other books with unreliable narrators and see how they were done (the only one I can think of off the top of my head is <em>Fight Club</em>; I've never actually read the book, though.) Wed, 25 Jan 2012 08:57:24 -0500 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/writing-101/threads/49539?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1090318 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/writing-101/threads/49539?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1090318 Tex2S ^ What she said! I don't believe first-person is at all necessary; you can get us just about the same information by using third-person limited (I'm taking it that that will include the MC's thoughts/perspective.) If you want to establish that the narrator might not have it all together, you can do that in pretty clear terms. One example: ------------------ It was a quarter to twelve by the time he finally made it through the checkout - the bovine woman cashiering obviously could care less about his hurry or anyone else's. Nevermind, anyway; it wasn't more than ten minutes home, and then - The alarm sounded as the double doors opened for him, and some cheap store-bought security guard blocked his path. "Excuse me, sir - I'll need to see your receipt." "Stupid... all right, hang on." Skip the bagging and suddenly you were a criminal. Who needed a bag for just one item anyway? He dug in both his pockets for the receipt, a litany of curses running through his mind - and came up empty. He looked up. "She didn't give it to me. The dumb cow didn't give it to me." That didn't make him any friends. "There's no need to be rude, sir. Can you show me who helped you?" 'Helped' wasn't the word for it. He turned back around, his index finger already locked and loaded... but the only cashiers working were an old man and a spotty-faced kid. How had she lumbered off so fast? "Where'd she go?" He was answered by a hand closing down on his arm. "Sir, I'll need you to come with me." ------------------ That might not be anything like what you have in mind - I guess what I mean to say is, if you can show the MC's perceptions having clear mismatch with those of reasonable-seeming people around him, you can establish in a pretty good hurry that we aren't necessarily expected to agree with his understanding of things. Wed, 25 Jan 2012 10:05:18 -0500 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/writing-101/threads/49539?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1090417 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/writing-101/threads/49539?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1090417 golfgal08 Oh, another example of third person limited unreliable narrator--think of the Harry Potter books. The first one in particular, the reader assumes that Snape is the bad guy for most of the book, because that's what Harry and his friends all assume. Wed, 25 Jan 2012 10:54:05 -0500 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/writing-101/threads/49539?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1090481 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/writing-101/threads/49539?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1090481 mackenziebradley I would recommend reading William Faulkner's "The Sound and the Fury" for how to write unreliable narrators. It's a challenging read (Spark Notes definitely helps), but well worth it. Wed, 25 Jan 2012 22:30:31 -0500 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/writing-101/threads/49539?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1091856 http://www.nanowrimo.org/en/forums/writing-101/threads/49539?page=1#forum_thread_comment_1091856