Philip Kerr

A lot of crime writing suffers from treading water. I feel an obligation to move the character on and not repeat myself. I try to fit him into a different period and a different agenda. That way, you learn slightly more about his personal history in the tradition of the unreliable narrator. It makes it more challenging to write.

British Author

Margaret Atwood

You could tell 'The Handmaid's Tale' from a male point of view. People have mistakenly felt that the women are oppressed, but power tends to organise itself in a pyramid. I could pick a male narrator from somewhere in that pyramid. It would interesting.

Canadian Novelist

Noelle Stevenson

I've always kind of gravitated toward characters who are a bit distant from the narrator or the point-of-view characters, so that's kind of important to me, to set up a different character who would be the point-of-view character for the story.

American Artist

Sylvia Day

For the most part, romance is written in third person, and it's written in multiple points of view, so you're in the hero's head, and you're in the heroine's head. I've always said that I'm more of a narrator than a creator.

American Writer

Sarah Pinborough

The unreliable narrator is an odd concept. The way I see it, we're all unreliable narrators of our lives who usually have absolute trust in our self-told stories. Any truth is, after all, just a matter of perspective.

English Writer

W. G. Sebald

I've always felt that the traditional novel doesn't give you enough information about the narrator, and I think it's important to know the point of view from which these tales are told: the moral makeup of the teller.

German Writer

Rick Moody

I didn't know how to kill off a character unless I was able, as a narrator, to get really complicated. Because it was a big deal. I'd never killed a character before.

American Novelist

Rachel Kushner

One of the strategies for doing first-person is to make the narrator very knowing, so that the reader is with somebody who has a take on everything they observe.

Philipp Meyer

I'm interested in getting deep into a person's consciousness and doing so in ways in which the narrator is secondary to the character's own thoughts.

Hanya Yanagihara

One of the fun things about unreliable narrators is they can be funny. You can admire things about them and laugh with them.

The narrator can tell the story without being a character, offering an objective view.

Outside Perspective

Sometimes narrators give their own opinions, coloring the story with personal bias.

Narrator's Bias

The narrator's tone can affect the emotional response of the audience to the story.

Emotional Impact

In non-fiction, the narrator often provides facts and explanations to inform the audience.

Informative Presence

Documentary narrators are usually perceived as authoritative figures.

Trusted Authority

A narrator's voice can be chosen to match the theme, like a warm voice for a family show.

Voice Personality

A character narrator provides unique inner thoughts and perspectives on the story.

Character Insight

A first-person narrator might be unreliable; not everything they say should be trusted.

Reliability Question

A character narrator's personality can greatly influence the storytelling style.

Narrative Style

 So what are some techniques you can use to achieve this in your own writing? Limit the point of view. Instead of an omniscient narrator who can see and relay everything that happens, tell the story from the perspective of the characters. They may start off knowing just as little as the audience does,

How to make your writing...

 They were mostly reacting to my accent, that it is not normal for a narrator to have an accent. But what is normal, anyway? We know that reviewers will find more spelling errors in your writing if they think you're black. We know that professors are less likely to help female or minority students.

Why I keep speaking up,...

 and destiny riffs on romance, while the tales of working-class narrators are generally comedies filled with scatological language, sexual deviance, and slapstick. This variation includes something for everyone, and that’s one reason why readers continue to delight in the work

Everything you need to...

 transforming each witness into an unreliable narrator. Without any hints on who’s sharing the most accurate account, the audience can’t tell which character to trust. Instead, each testimony takes on a truthful quality, and the audience is left doubting their convictions

How do you know what's...

 of life aboard a whaling ship, but also subjects from across human and natural history, by turns playful and tragic, humorous, and urgent. The narrator guiding us through these explorations is a common sailor called Ishmael.

Why should you read...

 For example, a third person narrator is necessarily a bit removed from the characters. But that can be good for stories where a feeling of distance is important. A third person narrator can be either limited,

First person vs. Second...

 sexy librarian thing going on and some pretty tough to beat and we'll just write in a sexy librarian character looks perfect you'll be the ship librarian that's hilarious oh you could be the narrator that's

The art of winging it PIPE...

 so there are some profound books, but also countless tomes of complete gibberish. The narrator has spent his entire life wandering this vast labyrinth of information in a possibly futile search for meaning.

Infinity according to...

 In writing, this is called point of view. What is the narrator not willing to see? So, I want to read you one more letter. And it goes like this. "Dear Therapist, I need help with my wife.

How changing your story...

 aside from humans in particularly your humble narrator what primate species spends the least amount of time climbing