: Re: What constitutes misleading the reader I'm as novice a writer as one can get so please bear with me. I have read many times that a writer shouldn't mislead the reader otherwise the reader

To add to the excellent answers already given, here's a simple way of thinking about it:

As long as the reader knows just as much about what's going on as the point of view character does, it isn't misleading.

For example, if the character is in a dream, and doesn't know they're dreaming, and the story is written from a limited point of view, there's no reason for the reader to know that the character is dreaming either. It's fine for there to be confusion about that by the reader, because the character in the story is experiencing the same thing.

On the other hand, if there are things that the characters know about that the reader doesn't, or if the reader has been led to believe something that the characters know isn't true, that would be misleading the reader. If the point of view character knows something, and it's pertinent to the current story, the reader should know that thing as well.

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: Re: What constitutes misleading the reader I'm as novice a writer as one can get so please bear with me. I have read many times that a writer shouldn't mislead the reader otherwise the reader

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