Breaking the Spell

As a writer, you're an illusionist: you create brave new worlds for your reader and go to great lengths to make them seem as real and as plausible as possible -- that is what writing good fiction is all about.

The subversive in me is interested in the effects of setting up an illusion only to destroy it with a kind of devastating sleight of hand.  It can be the most fantastic plotting device and leave your reader open-mouthed with astonishment. Sarah Waters is an absolute genius at this: without wanting to give too much away, in her novel Fingersmith she creates one reality only to whip the rug from under the reader's feet and reveal another, different one in a way that can leave you feeling a little giddy.

So here's a challenge for you: set a wheel turning  within a wheel -- as you're weaving one illusion, produce another like a string of bright silk handkerchiefs hidden up your sleeve. Fiction is bluffing anyway, but take it a step further and go for double bluff. It can be a circus trick: cue drumroll, cue fanfare...

An Alphabet of Better Writing # U

U is for...Unreliable Narrator

Mostly, when we read a story, we take the narrative at face value.  We believe what the author is telling us, either directly in a first person narrative or through the hero or heroine in a third person one, because -- well, why wouldn't we?

Precisely. As readers, we are trusting and - necessarily - gullible.  We want to believe.  If something happens inadvertently to break the magic spell, we feel cheated and / or irritated and may well chuck the book to one side.

But what if the writer deliberately pulls the rug from under her reader's feet, by revealing that the narration or the narrator is in some way unreliable?  What then? However you achieve it, gradually with a drip, drip, drip of hints and suggestions, or with a flourish of leger de main, it's an extraordinarily manipulative thing to do.  It is bound to provoke an intense reaction in your reader and (as long as they don't cast the book to one side) this is a Very Good Thing. Firstly, it will make them re-evaluate everything they have read so far, to see how they could have misread the situation so completely; it will niggle away at them and keep them in the world of your story for longer.  Secondly, they will want to know why: why has the writer subverted her own story?  What is she trying to achieve?  Where will it lead?

If you want to see how to do it (without giving too much away), read Fingersmith by Sarah Waters, or check out one of my previous posts...