Honors Class

A narrator who is an alcoholic on a bender or a drug addict who drifts in and out of lucidity is going to give a skewed account of what he sees and does. According to Narconon Arrowhead in Oklahoma, an accredited drug rehabilitation service, alcoholics and drug addicts most commonly present the following five behaviors: […] The post #15 Unreliable Narrators: Category 4: The Incapacitated appeared first on Jane Cleland.

Your narrator might be a schizophrenic who believes his hallucinations are real, a new mother suffering from post-partum depression, a veteran diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, or a teen going through a hormone-fueled meltdown. People who are emotionally taxed or mentally ill sometimes don’t know that their perceptions aren’t reliable, so neither will your readers […] The post #14 Unreliable Narrators: Category 3: The Emotionally Taxed or Mentally Ill appeared first on Jane Cleland.

Consider the guilty—people who feel guilty and people who are guilty. The narrator may be lying to save face, his marriage, his job, or otherwise protect and preserve whatever he has or thinks he has; or the narrator may be an actual criminal who doesn’t want to admit his past sins or is trying to […] The post #13 Unreliable Narrators: Category 2: The Guilty appeared first on Jane Cleland.

An alien, by definition, refers to someone or something that’s different, that doesn’t belong, that’s strange. For example, a woman from a rural small town who decides to try out the big city is likely to feel like a fish out of water. A few years back there was a fun contest in New York […] The post #12 Unreliable Narrators: Category 1: The Innocent, the Unknowing, or the Misunderstood: Aliens appeared first on Jane Cleland.

Let’s explore more about the innocent, the unknowing, or the misunderstood, specifically, people with lower-than-average intelligence. Someone in this category might miss the meaning in nuanced repartee—reporting the words, not the intonation, for example—and describing solely what she sees, but not what those observations might imply. Lest you think intonation is a minor factor, try […] The post #11 Unreliable Narrators: Category 1: The Innocent, the Unknowing, or the Misunderstood: Developmentally Disabled Adults, cont. appeared first on Jane Cleland.

The first broad category of unreliable narrator is the innocent, the unknowing, or the misunderstood. This category includes children, developmentally disabled adults, or anyone who comes from one culture and is plunked down in the middle of another culture. Some narrators are unreliable because they lack worldly knowledge. Perhaps they’re too young to understand the […] The post #10 Unreliable Narrators: Category 1: The Innocent, the Unknowing, or the Misunderstood: Children appeared first on Jane Cleland.

Understanding how the unreliable narration in each of these categories works allows you to choose wisely, to develop the character properly, and to plot consistently. In future editions, we’ll delve into each of these reasons in more depth. I researched the meaning of “truth” for my book Mastering Plot Twists, and discovered there were at […] The post #9 Unreliable Narrators: Five Reasons Narrators Are Unreliable appeared first on Jane Cleland.

A narrator’s unreliability must align with a character’s attributes, which means authors need to have a clear understanding of a character’s motivations. In Paula Hawkins’ The Girl on the Train, for instance, one narrator, Rachel, is unreliable because she’s viewing the world through a miasma of despair; another narrator, Anna, is unreliable because she’s prejudiced […] The post #8 Unreliable Narrators: Aligning Unreliability with a Character’s Attributes appeared first on Jane Cleland.

As an example, consider Wendy Corsi Staub’s thriller, The Final Victim. In this book, the protagonist, Charlotte, describes her grandfather, Gilbert, as a rock, always available for her, a kind and generous man. Gilbert’s sister, Charlotte’s Great Aunt Jeanne, describes him as mean and self-centered. Two women interact with the same man, yet their perceptions […] The post #7 Unreliable Narrators: Perception Gaps about People Can Create Unreliability appeared first on Jane Cleland.

I visited my friend Sandy at her new home in the middle of wine country in California. She took me out back to see the vineyards. The grape vines go dormant in the winter, but still, you’re going to die, she said, the valley is so gorgeous. Everywhere I looked, I saw brown and withered […] The post #6 Unreliable Narrators: Perception Influences Reality Example 1: Golden Hills appeared first on Jane Cleland.

When I was fifteen, my best friend was a girl named Nina Shaun. One day, Nina’s mom came up from the basement carrying a large bottle of red soda pop and explained that the label had washed off. She didn’t remember if it was cherry or strawberry, and she wondered if we’d do a taste […] The post #5 Unreliable Narrators: Perception Influences Reality Example 1: Soda Pop appeared first on Jane Cleland.

Remembering something isn’t like rewinding a movie that lives in your head. Cognitive psychologists report that recall comes from recreating a memory, not replaying it. When recreating a memory, we gather up the bits and pieces of sensory threads and cognitive strings and knit them together into whole cloth, much like a beautiful tapestry. If […] The post #4 Unreliable Narrators: Memory & Unreliability appeared first on Jane Cleland.

A perception gap is the difference between what you recall and what actually happened. From a writer’s point of view, you’re on solid ground if you have a character struggle with remembering things. This gap is a foundation of unreliability. The Innocence Project, the non-profit organization that works to exonerate wrongfully convicted prisoners through DNA […] The post #3 Unreliable Narrators: Perception Gaps as the Foundation of Unreliability appeared first on Jane Cleland.

Yes, the unreliable narrator is a powerful tool, but you need to be cautious. You can’t have someone suddenly shout, “But he’s a twin!” Nor can you have your protagonist wake from a dream, a drug-induced hallucination, or reveal he’s from another planet. The bottom line is that unreliable narrators  don’t excuse lazy writing. From […] The post # 2 Unreliable Narrators: Playing Fair with Your Readers appeared first on Jane Cleland.

The unreliable narrator has been a convention since Arabian Nights, maybe even longer than that. An “unreliable narrator” refers to a non-credible narrator, although readers may not know the narrator isn’t credible until the end of the story. Sometimes, though, the narrator is openly “unreliable” from the start. The Gathering, for instance, Ann Enright’s novel […] The post #1 Unreliable Narrators: Overview appeared first on Jane Cleland.

Red herrings can employ specialized expertise when the expert is wrong. Think about the professionals in your world. Lawyers. Accountants. Bankers. Pharmacists. Who knows your secrets? In Rex Stout’s The Gun With Wings, for instance, Nero Wolfe investigates the apparent suicide of an opera singer who was being treated for a damaged larynx by his […] The post #10 Red Herrings: Specialized Expertise You Shouldn’t Trust appeared first on Jane Cleland.

Red herrings can use specialized expertise when the expert is right. This red herring technique comes up all the time in my Josie Prescott Antiques Mysteries. Josie, an antiques appraiser, notices details that elude lay people—why wouldn’t she? She’s an expert in her field. Let’s say, for instance, that someone wants her to appraise a […] The post #9 Red Herrings: Specialized Expertise You Can Trust appeared first on Jane Cleland.

Let’s talk details—what’s included in a description … or what’s left out. You need to weave in those details that are to serve as red herrings and leave out those details that, by their absence, should raise a red flag. The latter is an especially effective technique. Consider the dog that didn’t bark in the […] The post #8 Red Herrings: Details appeared first on Jane Cleland.

The Pygmalion Effect says that people can be “brought to life” by love or appreciation or affirmation. In other words, people tend to do what’s expected of them. If you treat someone as if they’re capable of success, they tend to succeed. If you expect someone to fail, their chances of failing increase. You could […] The post #7 Red Herrings: Using Human Nature—the Pygmalion Effect appeared first on Jane Cleland.

Just as our perceptions color our beliefs in the Halo Effect, so too does the Devil Effect hold true: If we discover a not-good trait in someone, we assume the person is bad through and through. If you write about an employee who’s perpetually late, for example, readers are likely to assume that he has […] The post #6 Red Herrings: Using Human Nature—the Devil Effect appeared first on Jane Cleland.