Unreliable Narrators

 

SPOILER ALERT: If you haven’t read The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie or Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier but intend to do so in the future, you may want to skip this post.

Usually, the term “unreliable narrator” is used for a first-person narrator who the author has set up to mislead the reader. The unreliability is always intentional by the author, and sometimes—although not always—by the character.

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd uses a narrator who intentionally misleads the reader by leaving out some vital information. Dr. Sheppard is a likeable man, and for most of the book we believe he is trying to give us a neutral picture of both the events leading up to the murder and Hercule Poirot’s attempts to solve it. So the reader is surprised when Poirot unmasks Dr. Sheppard as the murderer.

An example of an unreliable narrator who is not intentionally misleading comes from Rebecca. Rebecca was the first Mrs. de Winter, and the narrator is the second one. When she hears part of Rebecca’s story but not all of it, her overactive imagination fills in the rest.

But this post goes beyond the traditional meaning of the term “unreliable narrator.” I’m taking it literally.

Only omniscient narrators can be completely reliable. Every other type of narrator has human failings and gets some things wrong. Readers should understand that everything they assume is fact might not be.

For example, I’m currently working on a middle-grade historical novel with two third-person protagonists. Will and Meg are twins with a similar upbringing but differing perspectives. Will simply doesn’t view the facts the same way Meg does. Since I use each one’s voice and impressions throughout that person’s point-of-view chapter, any reader who says “I read it in the narrative so it must be true” is deluded.

This comes up even when there is only one POV character or when the POV characters agree. A twelve-year-old girl who is hungry might think of herself as starving even though that isn’t literally true. But that’s how she thinks of it, so that is how the narrative portrays it.

One caveat. Some writers step back from their characters and write narrative that doesn’t match the characters’ thoughts. Those authors might be able to get away with limiting their narrative to “truth.” But I don’t write that way. I write the narrative to match the character’s thoughts, and his or her ideas may be wrong.

So don’t believe everything you read.

Writing Narrative from a Character's Perspective

 

I usually write in a close third-person point-of-view. That means the narrative is coming from inside my POV character’s head using her thought processes, observations, and vocabulary.

Take description, for example. If my POV character is materialistic and tends to notice what people wear and how they furnish their homes, the narrative should include those details. If the character isn’t observant, the description should be minimal or non-existent—unless she has some particular reason for noticing the details in a specific situation.

Or consider this advice: use as much word variety as possible to make the narrative more interesting. I could use “couch” in one paragraph and refer to the same item of furniture as a “sofa” in another. That’s good word variety, but would my POV character really use the terms interchangeably? Some people do, but if my character wouldn’t, I shouldn’t, either. And sometimes the attempt at word variety creates confusion, such as using “cleaner” to refer to a vacuum cleaner even though many readers use to word to refer to household cleaning products such as Pine-Sol. One friend from my weekly critique group tried to avoid repeating the word “corn” by calling it “maize” the second time, but her POV character is a contemporary teenager who is unlikely to think of that word. I suggested just using “corn” twice, but she had a better solution and managed to get rid of the second reference altogether.

The same goes for grammar. If my character isn’t a stickler for it, I shouldn’t be, either. But I can’t stray too far or my readers will assume I don’t understand or respect good grammar, and that doesn’t work, either.

In the end, it becomes a balancing act. Dialogue would be deadly if we put in each “ah” and “um” from everyday life, and the same is true of narrative. Although it should create the impression of reality, it doesn’t have to mimic life.

Still, it’s nice to get as close as possible without boring the reader.

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The photo at the top of this page shows “The Thinker” by Auguste Rodin.