The Unseen Truth: Revisiting Unreliable Narrators
It's #ThrowbackThursday! Join Haly as she continues from yesterday's 'Ask the Bard' with an in-depth look at unreliable narrators and the essential rules for playing fair while deceiving your audience
The Lies We Sell Must Be True
Over the last seven months, the question of how to play fair with the audience while misdirecting them keeps coming up again and again and again. Complex topics like this always need more exploration, and doing deep dives into the inner workings of these intricate subjects is one of the things that drives me to write about worldbuilding.
We often discuss the importance of playing fair with the audience to deliver a satisfying ending. Unlike a happy ending (which is just ending on a positive note), a satisfying ending ensures that the audience feels a complete story has been told. It means that the important questions have been answered, and the main plot has reached a conclusion that makes sense within the established world.
It was Agatha all along!
A.S.A.P.
The first and most important rule of misdirecting your audience is to introduce the solution to the misdirection as early as possible. When they get to the end of your story they have to be able to look back and say to themselves, “Duh! It was there all along, if only I had known then what it meant.”
We buy into the Deus ex Machina that saves James Bond at the end of every movie because each adventure starts with a visit to Q’s lab where we are introduced to the tools that will end up saving him in the end. The solution is introduced as quickly as possible.
Spoilers, Darling!
This section will have spoilers for What Do You Do?/The Grownup by Gillian Flynn. If you care about not spoiling the end, skip to the next header.
In my opinion, the reigning master of the unreliable narrator is Gillian Flynn. Many of you are probably familiar with her novel-turned-movie, Gone Girl. Today, however, I’m going to talk about her short story, “What Do You Do?”
First appearing in the anthology Rogues (edited by George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois), it was republished as “The Grownup” and is now being written for screen.
The unnamed main character is a pan handler who became a sex worker (at a fortune-telling parlor, giving hand jobs in the back room), then a con artist in the guise of a fortune-teller and aura cleanser. She uses her street-wise experience at reading people to make snap judgements on everyone she meets; a necessary skill for a successful con artist.
This woman is an avid reader and fancies herself a library intellectual. She was in the habit of borrowing books from one of her sex work clients. When this man’s wife figured out he was seeking sex work, she went to the place and ended up hiring the main character as a fortune teller. In the end, we learn that it was the book borrowing that gave the whole thing away.
Reading the story, the very first thing we learn about the main character is that she’s a con artist. Right there, we are given every reason to doubt her perspective on the whole thing. And yet, this character is so breezy, so compelling, so likeable and identifiable, that we are just drawn into her perspective.
After all, the story is told from the first person, she is literally telling us the story of what happened to her.
The next thing that we learn, is that she’s been borrowing books from one of her back-room gentlemen. It’s a casual drop-in, mentioned almost in passing as the main character talks about this client as an example of the ‘typical sort of guy’ who comes in, and what her work is like on a ‘usual’ day.
Everything else that is going on — the things in the house, the trouble with the stepson — we learn along the way as a part of her journey through the story. It’s one of those “here’s how I got into this mess,” stories and it ends with a satisfying, if unsettling and uncomfortable, conclusion.
To Reiterate and Reinforce…
A satisfying ending does not need to be happy. It can be disturbing, it can be thoughtful, it can be sad. Satisfaction isn’t about the emotional journey; it’s about the human brain’s need for a story to have a certain shape, and for your story to fit that shape. It’s about the audience recognizing that there was a beginning, middle, and end, that the plot was clearly resolved, character arcs have been completed, and the story feels whole.
Satisfaction, from a storytelling definition, is a structured and defined thing. It is measurable and repeatable. It is different from the emotional journey and the emotional resolution in that the emotional journey can be different for individual members of your audience, depending on their mood, perspective, and taste.
We don’t have to like a story to agree that it was, in the end, a whole story with a satisfying ending. After all, a complete piece of shit is still…complete.
Shine On, Moonbeams!
I really love that y’all are starting to be more active in the comments section! It makes my heart thrill every time I get notified that y’all have thoughts and opinions on the things I’m writing. Thank you!
Now keep it up and tell me YOUR suggestions for next week’s topic! Right now, I’m thinking transportation. Is that useful to you? Would you like something different? Let me know in the comments (or reply to this e-mail if you’re not using the Substack app)! January may be over but the year is still brand new! I might use YOURS in the future!
Because the most important things…are the things we build together!
Tomorrow:
Feature Friday: A Sneak Peek at My Plans for GenCon 2025
What an enlightening article! Misdirection as a means for a satisfying ending is an art on its own.
Transportation is an interesting topic. Are you going to talk about magical transportation too? I find this really fascinating!
And, if I may propose something for your genius mind (if you haven't done it already), I'd love to learn your process on choosing the right perspective for your stories. I usually go with third person-an all knowing narrator makes things easier most of the times. But first person can be so engaging and powerful! Well, that was my thoughts! 💭 Until next time ❤️