: Re: How can I convey that my viewpoint character is lying? When writing in the first person, what is a good way to convey that the viewpoint character is lying, without saying so explicitly?

@Dunderdale623

Vote Up Vote Down

Just occurred to me what troubled me about this. If someone really does have an eidetic memory they will remember telling you they had one and therefore would only tell a lie like this to either test your powers of recall or if they wanted to be caught out for some reason.

All narrators are necessarily unreliable. There's nothing wrong with a narrator saying:

"I remember the woman but will not tell you about her in any depth as
you really would gain nothing from the description. I shall continue
to do you this kindness throughout my account. If you could see what I
see then you would also err on the side of vagueness when trying not
to bore others with exhaustive unnecessary details."

This accomplishes the goal of telling people the account will be heavily edited to the convenience of the narrator. Also, and this is important with most unreliable witnesses, make the reader feel patronised and talked down to. This will make them want to believe the narrator is lying and wrong about things and keep it foremost in their minds.

(0)

Login to post a comment!