Your character sits on a throne of lies!
Yup, you have been
lied to by a character. Most likely more than one. Probably whole slews of
them.
Now, to be fair, they most likely didn’t mean to lie, unless
of course they were a Big Bad, in which case that’s sort of their job. But for
the rest of them? They were telling the
truth—as they saw it.
Writers control what the reader sees by choosing a point of
view character (or characters ;)) and the type of POV. Traditional third person
gives the reader access to an over-view of the situation, and a far more global
idea of what’s going on, but it can also put more distance between the reader
and the character. First person resolves
the distance issue—you are RIGHT in their head after all—but does severely
limit what the reader can see.
I write both types of POV depending on the story. The Lost
Ancients series is first person, my other books, including The Warrior Wench
space opera that will be out in 2016, are all third person. I have tried switching POV, for both The
Glass Gargoyle (going from first to third) and in The Warrior Wench (third to
first) and both attempts were awful. Neither of them worked in the other
format. Sometimes a story needs to have a certain feel to really be its best. Sometimes
you need more lying going on.
Now, like the characters, an author isn’t really lying per
se…okay, we are, but like the Big Bads it’s sort of our job. But for some
stories, having that broad, overarching feel of a third person POV just doesn’t
work. We need some missing information,
or misunderstood information, or just plain lies. We need an unreliable
narrator.
Taryn doesn’t mean to lie, in her head, she’s not lying to
anyone—except maybe a few tiny white lies.
But the fact is that we are in her head.
We only see what she sees. Most importantly we only see things how she sees
them.
She is, by definition, an unreliable narrator. This isn’t
just true for her, pick up any first person book, and you’ll find the same
issue going on. How you see an event will be different from how I see an event—even
if we are standing right next to each other. So, your story would be different
than my story.
Like all of us, whether we be living people, or figments of
someone’s imagination, we don’t always see things how they are. A person’s
past, or their perception of that past, is going to make a huge impact on their
reactions to, and perceptions of, their current situation. And characters
are people, right? They don't mean to sit on a throne of lies--they just end up that way ;).
So what about you and your favorite fictional
characters? Are they lying to you? Did they do it well?
