Twisted Perspective: Unreliable Narrators
Haly puts a twist on perspective with a look at the concept of the unreliable narrator and how to play fair with your audience when you lie to them.
Tomorrow is my birthday!!
More than just another world-building Wednesday, tomorrow is my birthday! That’s right, your favorite wacky world-builder is a sassy Sagittarius.
I’ll be partying on Twitch starting around noon Eastern (5 pm GMT), and going for as long as I’m having fun. We’ll start with writing sprints and world-building chat, and likely descend into The Sims 4 as the afternoon goes on!
For those of you who would prefer to celebrate with a monetary gift, you can buy me a coffee on my ko-fi page!
Mind Tricks and Twisted Tales
This week has been all about perspective, and in yesterday’s article I crafted examples to show how a single person can have only one point of view, but many perspectives and how one event can be perceived differently by different people.
Now, let’s take a look at the world-building around one of my favorite narrative techniques, the unreliable narrator.
What Makes a Narrator Unreliable?
As the name implies, an unreliable narrator is someone who we have given our audience reason to doubt. That is, you want your audience to question whether or not they can believe a particular character’s perspective.
For example, in the movie What Lies Beneath, Claire believes that her house is haunted. However, we are given many reasons to doubt what she says. We see immediately that she’s having a hard time letting go as her daughter leaves for college.
As the movie progresses, we learn that Claire is also recovering from a traumatic car accident. Because part of telling a thrilling story is piling tension and drama on top of each other, these factors are magnified by the isolation and loneliness of living in the deep woods of New England, and a pair of neighbors with some shady behavior.
Even her loving and compassionate husband is having trouble maintaining his patience in the face of Claire’s insistence that she is being haunted.
You Have to Play Fair
Part of creating an unreliable narrator is planting the suggestion that they are unreliable.
In this example, we are beaten over the head with the idea that Claire’s perspective is skewed. Couple this with the audience witnessing the haunting right along with Claire, and by the time the true happenings are revealed, we’ve come around to the truth and are dragged along on the same terrifying ride as Claire and her husband.
But what about the other way around? What about the more subtle form of unreliable narrator, the sort you believe wholeheartedly until you find out in the end that they were a liar liar, flaming pants and all?
What about Wadsworth, the Butler, in Clue?
Because Clue follows the traditional pattern of the ensemble murder, everyone has a secret. People who have secrets are prone to lie to keep them. Everyone is being blackmailed, and so when Wadsworth is revealed in the ‘true’ ending of the movie, it’s only a mild surprise. Of course he lied; he’s the bad guy!
Other Unreliable Narrator Cues
Liars and emotional trauma are easy and reliable background details to help flesh out an unreliable narrator, but they aren’t the only options. Other conditions such as binge drinking, becoming a werewolf, or being stunned or knocked unconscious can also lead to a character’s perspective being untrustworthy.
The amount of surprise your audience gets from the discovery of having been fooled will vary according to how subtle you were with the clues.
In What Lies Beneath, we are meant to question Claire from the very beginning. But in Clue, it often doesn’t occur to people that secrets, blackmail, and lies all go together until after the big reveal. As usual, it all depends on the emotional resolution you want your audience to have.
WW & AtB
Tomorrow is still World-building Wednesday, and there will be the usual Ask the Bard. Go ahead and send me your questions and problems. Just remember to say “Happy birthday!” too!
Coming This Week:
#Worldbuilding Wednesday: HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!! Yes, it will still be #WorldbuildingWednesday. Yes, there will be a fresh new ‘Ask the Bard’ for your inspiration and edification. And yes, there will be cake. (It’s not a lie.)
Thursday: Happy Thanksgiving!!
#FictionFriday: A new piece of fiction, fresh every Friday.
Saturday: Quick Six World-building prompts
Sunday: New Week, New Theme
Manic Monday: Celebrating the Theme
Twisted Tuesday: Alternate Perspectives
Happy birthday 🎂🎈
Happy birthday!!!!! What's your favorite archetype character to play with?