I recently finished the first season of HBO’s True Detective, and one element I loved — which made the episodes more exciting — was the possible presence of an unreliable narrator.
Some of our favorite classic stories are told from the perspectives of unreliable narrators, from Alex in A Clockwork Orange to Humbert Humbert in Lolita. In the world of nonfiction, consider drug-fueled Hunter S. Thompson in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, or Lauren Slater, the epileptic and compulsive liar who penned the memoir Lying.
Writers create unreliable narrators for different reasons. Perhaps your character is guilty and wants to mislead others. Maybe he suffers from some kind of condition. Or perhaps she’s under the influence of a substance — or an otherworldly force. In many cases, a writer uses an unreliable narrator as a storytelling device to build drama and suspense.
For this challenge, let’s experiment:
- Fiction writers: Draft a short story or flash fiction piece from the point of view of a unreliable narrator. What is the source of their unreliability? In what ways and details can you reveal that this person might not be telling the truth? What kind of setting or situation can you create?
- Poets: Try your hand at free verse or experimental prose from the perspective of an unreliable voice. Or craft a haiku that comments on truth and honesty, or falsehood and white lies.
- Nonfiction writers: Consider a short personal essay explaining your take on the topic. As a reader, how do you feel when you’ve been duped — by a character, by a story? Have you watched a TV show or film in which you thought one thing, but was totally wrong?
- Memoirists: Choose a hazy memory from your past, and use it as inspiration for your piece. Try to recall it — and don’t be afraid to show your uncertainty. Or, take the memory and mold it into whatever you’d like — shape it in a way that’s totally untrue, and see where it goes.
If none of these ideas speak to you, find more inspiration in one of these prompts:
- Truth. Write about this word for 15 minutes. Go.
- Sidekick. If you needed help, tell us about a character in a book or film that you’d want on your side, and why.
- Mind Games. Write about a person, fictional or real, with whom you’d love to have a conversation, and why.
- Rewrite. If you could reshape and rewrite any character in any story, who would you choose? What would you change about them — and would this ultimately alter the rest of the story?
