How to pace the revelation of new information?

Fair enough. My head is starting to spin here!

I do think there is a difference between lack of impartiality on the part of an author (who, of course, is very likely to have an opinion about their characters and plot) and a deliberate attempt to deceive the reader about their viewpoint, though. That's the difference, as I see it. An unreliable narrator is deliberately trying to get us to view things from a perspective the narrator either knows is untrue, or they may be unable to grasp the truth (due to mental instability, or something like that.)

I suppose a mystery author might be somewhat unreliable, in that they do withhold information. However, the reader goes into one of those books knowing that's exactly what's going to happen ...so the unreliability is actually built in to the story. An experienced mystery reader never takes anything at face value. I think that sort of technique would work a lot less happily if it were used in a romance or a historical novel, or even a horror or thriller novel. These novels aren't puzzles that are meant to challenge the reader the same way a mystery does.

 

What I was getting at with my question earlier is if a narrator in third qualifies as an unreliable narrator because the world being described from the POV character's perspective is not the world most readers would agree upon if they were there.

If I'm doing third person past limited about a character that is red/green color blind, I'm going to describe red/green/brown as the same color (assuming that's how it works, I don't really know). Does that create an unreliable narrator when indeed, red and green are distinct?

 

Okay, you've got me beat. I have no idea what I would call that! Or whether I'd be captivated by the trick the author has played on me, or if I'd just be pissed off when I found out that the author had not bothered to tell me the person was colour-blind. I guess it would depend on the story.

 

I'd say it comes down to whether the reader is aware of the colourblindness. Like, in Rand Anthem, there's no singular first-person pronoun for the first part of the book - the character lives in a collectivist society that apparently doesn't recognize individuals, so instead of "I" the first-person narrator calls himself "we". But the other makes it clear quite early that this is what's going on, so it's not really an unreliable narrator. The readers know what's going on.

If your narrative makes it clear that the character is colourblind, then it's not an unreliable narrator to portray the world from that perspective. But if your narrative DOESN'T make it clear, so it seems as if the world really is all brown (or whatever)? Yeah, I think I'd class that as an unreliable narrator.

 

I think you might have to work a little bit harder, or maybe just a little bit differently, to mislead in third person. But I don't see it as too fundamentally different.

Saying but not-saying that Jane is speeding:

Jane smiled, enjoying her mastery of the blahdeblah suspension of her new blahcar. Unlike her sister, she knew how to drive. No lurking in the slow lane, no obsessive watching of the instruments. Really, it was a surprise that Megan wasn't regularly ticketed for obstructing traffic.​

 

Yeah, your third person is broadly hinting that Jane is speeding. My point was that, in third person, it would be seen as dishonest to NOT hint (or openly tell) that Jane was speeding. If you found out later on that the author had deliberately omitted that little fact, you'd very likely be a very annoyed reader.

If you wrote something like "Unlike her sister, Jane was a good driver," and just left it like that, the author would be acting in a dishonest way. Especially if we already knew that Megen had been speeding. The "Unlike her sister" is something we need to trust in third person. In first person, however, any statement can just be blowharding—and we know it.

The author's job—in third person—is to honestly relate what Jane does and thinks, and allow us to draw our own conclusions.

In your example, what Jane thinks is clearly pointing to the fact that she enjoys speeding and is proud of her prowess. If the author leaves out (or deliberately disguises) something important like the speeding factor—making us assume Jane is a good driver who would not speed—then ...hummm...I'd be pissed off.

 

Hmm. I think I'd be equally annoyed, though, in first person.

 

No, I think you'd expect it.

Unlike Megen, I know how to drive. I'm a good driver.

That is the opinion of the person who is narrating the story in First Person. Unless this person gives us examples of why/how they are a good driver, we would be smart not to believe them, or take their opinion of themselves at face value. Any more than we would take somebody else's opinion of themselves as gospel truth in real life.

 

So are you suggesting that ALL first person books have unreliable narrators? I don't think that's how the term is usually used...

 

It's like people. Some people's versions of events are more trustworthy than others.

Until the narrator gives us reason to trust them (or we know that that particular author always uses a trustworthy narrator in First Person) it's a good idea to keep an open mind with a first person narration. The narrators will usually reveal their true colours at some point.