: Re: How To Write An Unreliable Narrator? So in my latest works I've decided to make my narrator, whom is my main character as well, pretty unreliable. How do I get this across to readers? I read

@Frith254

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I know this topic is over two years old but I feel the need to address it anyway. The major difference between fiction and non-fiction is that in fiction all narrators are to a greater or lesser extent - unreliable. Fiction is not about facts. By definition fiction is one person recollection, the way one person sees things.

It is literally 'a point of view'. We're telling stories. This has happened to me so I assume others have experienced the same thing. You're at a family reunion telling some mildly amusing story from childhood and your mother says, "That's not the way happened."

Forrest Gump (film) is a masterclass in narration. Tom Hanks sits on the bench telling his life story to a series of strangers. Every time the story gets ridiculous and listener departs Tom provides proof that he was telling the truth.

Unfortunately, many peers will identify nuanced unreliable narration as 'plot holes' or 'errors'.

Unreliable narration is easily picked up by readers because readers (as opposed to other writers) assume you know what you are doing.

e.g. The narrator says his father was a Racing car driver who died in a crash during the Indy 500. Later during a scene his mother is heard on the telephone cursing the narrator's father because the maintenance check is late.

Readers will catch on very quickly.

If you write using scenes and transitions you can SHOW one version of events in scene which is at odds with the narration during a transition.

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