: Re: Is it bad writing or bad story telling if first person narrative contains more information than the narrator knows? Here are a few examples of the narrator knowing more than he should. (A)

@Connie138

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A main reason to choose a first person narrator in the first place is to limit the scope of the narrator (and to get deeply into that one character's head).

So, no, the narrator should not be privy to information that the character does not know.

With two exceptions:

1. If it's information the character learned later on, the narration can include it.

After all, the character is telling her/his story. When you and I tell our stories in real life, we don't always note when we found out information.

When I got back from the post office, my front door was open and the
place looked like a small child had a very big tantrum. Burglars. They found
the money and fake IDs and stole my cookie jar for good measure.

You can write this even if it took a few minutes to figure out the money/IDs were gone and a week to notice the cookie jar.

2. If it's an unreliable narrator.

Some people fill in the blanks when they tell stories. In a book it's sometimes easy to spot when the first person narrator offers explanations of what another character is thinking. In some cases, the narrator might be right. "He was angry at me." But other times it's dead obvious how wrong s/he is. (Elaborate descriptions of how the other character's body language means s/he wants to sleep with the narrator.)

Sometimes it can be easy for the reader to gloss over the fact that the narrator couldn't be sure of that information and be misled. As an author, you can use this to your advantage. It's only bad writing if you don't see how and why this works, if you're not doing it on purpose.

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