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When the narrator is wrong about something in the book's world, it's called an unreliable narrator. When a narrator has a single point of view (sees through one character's eyes) then it's inevita...
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#4: Attribution notice removed
by
System
·
2019-12-20T00:40:44Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/45273 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#3: Attribution notice added
by
System
·
2019-12-08T11:55:50Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/45273 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision
When the narrator is wrong about something in the book's world, it's called an unreliable narrator. When a narrator has a single point of view (sees through one character's eyes) then it's inevitable that some information is unreliable. Readers understand that. With a 3rd person narrator you're also doing some factual description based on what the character experiences. It's fine to say that the man came forward to shake MC's hand and introduce himself as so-and-so. Because that actually happens. It's fine to describe the MC referring to the man with that name, because that also happens. Ditto for any thoughts of the MC's you share with the reader. Because of this, you can also have the narrator use the (false) name. The only thing you want to avoid is any information that could not possibly come from the MC. And that would include knowing that the MC is being tricked.
#1: Imported from external source
by
System
·
2019-05-20T04:26:09Z (over 5 years ago)
Original score: 20