How To Write An Unreliable Narrator?

The readers only know what you tell them. If you want the reader to realize your narrator isn't telling the truth, the truth must get to the reader around your narrator.

• Your narrator can be caught in an outright lie by another character, and has to either admit to it or weasel out of it.
• An event or series of events occur (the narrator gives a note to a girl he has a crush on, he spends all day thinking about her) and the narrator is confronted about them, and then lies (he says he doesn't have a crush). The readers see that he's lying, but the other characters don't.
• An event or series of events occur and the narrator lies to himself about them. ("Just because I thought he was handsome didn't mean I was gay. I can admire all the effort he puts into his workout and it doesn't mean I'm into him like that.")
• An event or series of events occur (the narrator steals her sister's shirt, wears it, and ruins it), and the narrator lies to the reader about it. "I deserved that shirt because I lent her my skirt last year and she never lent me anything back. I gave her the money to buy the shirt and she won't let me wear it."
• The narrator perceives reality in a way which is obviously not the way the rest of us do. ("The sun's rays pierced my skull and began cooking the dendrites between my brain cells. It was all I could do to put on my yellow hat, which reflected the UVQ rays back out into space.")

posted about 9 years ago

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Lauren Ipsum‭

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