How To Create An Unreliable Narrator

a guide byLaunchora Team

Often times while reading a story we come across characters that aren't exactly trustworthy. They're either evidently dubious or seemingly normal, except something about them just seems off. They give you this lil' niggling feeling in the back of your head that perhaps there's more to their words than meets the eyes. Such characters generally tend to be psychopaths, murderers, criminals, manipulative liars or harmlessly insane to varying degrees. They're written this way to serve some particular purpose in the story and are generally unreliable; when you choose to narrate the story from such a character's point of view, you've chosen to put an unreliable narrator at the ship's helm. Simply stating their unreliability is worthless; you have to make the reader believe that trusting this character would be bad idea. Here's how to do precisely that, in three simple steps.

 

 

1) A clearly contradictory personality

 

No one trusts a liar but we all understand their motivation to lie. As a result, liars are predictable and their predictability in itself is reliable. So lying isn't synonymous with unreliable; instead, a character who simply believes different things depending on the situation is far more reliable. Technically, they aren't lying since they believe their words at that given instant. This gives you a wide range of possibilities: you may paint them as emotionally manipulative, indulging in subtle psychological abuse, a desperate need to be right at all times. Any one of these forces the rational reader to condemn the narrative offered by this particular character, since of course such a character would twist words to suit his means, to gain sympathy or whatever else his ego needs. They might not be lying per se but nothing they say can be trusted.

 

 

2) Actions that don't fit with the norm

 

Please note that I don't mean kooky gimmicks like when the protagonist stops in the middle of the street 'cause she saw a dandelion. We aren't concerning ourselves with fantastical whimsy or the typical "manic pixie dream girl" here. Instead, we are referring to actions that are perfectly rationalized using the narrator's own brand of logic. More often than not, if you're writing an unreliable character, the way they think will be glaringly different from how "normal" people are supposed to think. Consequently, their actions will reflect their logic. It isn't whimsy since there's a clear explanation (which you may choose whether or not to provide) behind their actions; the issue is that their reasoning doesn't match the patterns of a normal character.

For example, say I choose to toast my bread for two minutes, butter it and then pop it back in the toaster for another minute. This ensures that my toast is crisp, hot, and the butter is melted evenly throughout instead of being all clumpy. Perfectly logical yet I'll bet that this would get quite a few raised eyebrows.

 

 

3) Major traumatic incidents

 

This plot device can be portrayed as a causative factor to the steps mentioned above. It's the written equivalent of a doctor's note, a "Get out of jail free" card of sorts. The potency of said incident depends on how traumatic it was and if it's written in a way that reduces the reader to sympathetic nods au lieu de the initial uneasiness the character inspired. However, care is imperative while establishing past trauma as the reason for the character's current behaviour. For if the reader feels too sorry for our unreliable narrator, they might decide to trust him regardless of their instinctual mistrust and take all their words at face value, simply because they feel that past events justify the current character completely. That pretty much defeats the point of writing an unreliable narrator, so tread the line carefully.

 

There we go. In three steps we've covered the major chunk of what makes a character unreliable, namely their words and how they choose to interact with other characters and their environment. Of course, one may further explain the character through any number of other character development devices; however, the three steps mentioned above are the core of what makes a character unreliable in a reader's mind. It might be a little tough to write such a character initially, so keep practicing; at worst, you'll end up with a perfectly trustworthy character and that's a skill in itself. Try not to use the word unreliable while describing your unreliable narrator; the sharp reader will be immediately alerted and might be a little more than disappointed to have the fun basically spelled out for them. It is imperative to leave the reader to draw his own conclusions about the character; paint it in the light you wish for them to be perceived in and hope that the message gets across to the reader. If it does, we celebrate. If it doesn't, we keep writing.

Tap on 'start writing' below to begin the creation of your new character!

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