I love this kind of essay that deconstructs the stuff we spend time constructing.
That's really good, because (as it turns out) I can pull the concept apart, but I'm not terribly good at putting it back together again. So this turned inot more of an analysis, and less of an instructional effort.
I've always been fascinated with the idea of the lying good-guy protagonist who's lying for his own desperate reasons--not any nefarious purpose, of course, because he's a good guy!
Me too! When we started "Masquerade," we seriously considered making it Fraser pov, but you're right, it's really hard to pull off.
Especially when people see a character they think of as honest and good, to have them lying is really tricky--and it ends up getting tangled in the reader's assumptions, and fanon, and...well, I didn't have that many fics to choose from to illustrate. And the only one I could think of that I liked was yours. *g*
Apparently in their minds, if Spock says it, it must be so. Or else I didn't telegraph his fallibility well enough.
My guess it that it was probably the first one. I didn't get into it too much (didn't want to poke at fanon any more than necessary) but I think it's actually a lot more difficult to write unreliable central characters in fanfic than it is in ordinary fiction. The thing that (for me) makes fanfic so fun--the chance to play around within this generally understood universe) also makes it more likely that pushing the boundaries with a character who isn't quite what they seem will blow up.
I think that's why so many of the sources of unreliability in fanfic come from *outside* the characters--amnesia, or being kept in the dark, or flat-out being lied *to*--instead of their internal failings. We want these characters to be right, to be trustworthy, and it takes some fancy footwork to keep them believable, likable, and also allow them to have the sort of faults that unreliable narrators display.
Oh, I forgot that one! It would have worked as a lovely example of a late-narrative reveal, too. Maybe I'll credit you and go back and stick it in, if that's okay?
Re: Ooh, shiny!
That's really good, because (as it turns out) I can pull the concept apart, but I'm not terribly good at putting it back together again. So this turned inot more of an analysis, and less of an instructional effort.
I've always been fascinated with the idea of the lying good-guy protagonist who's lying for his own desperate reasons--not any nefarious purpose, of course, because he's a good guy!
Me too! When we started "Masquerade," we seriously considered making it Fraser pov, but you're right, it's really hard to pull off.
Especially when people see a character they think of as honest and good, to have them lying is really tricky--and it ends up getting tangled in the reader's assumptions, and fanon, and...well, I didn't have that many fics to choose from to illustrate. And the only one I could think of that I liked was yours. *g*
Apparently in their minds, if Spock says it, it must be so. Or else I didn't telegraph his fallibility well enough.
My guess it that it was probably the first one. I didn't get into it too much (didn't want to poke at fanon any more than necessary) but I think it's actually a lot more difficult to write unreliable central characters in fanfic than it is in ordinary fiction. The thing that (for me) makes fanfic so fun--the chance to play around within this generally understood universe) also makes it more likely that pushing the boundaries with a character who isn't quite what they seem will blow up.
I think that's why so many of the sources of unreliability in fanfic come from *outside* the characters--amnesia, or being kept in the dark, or flat-out being lied *to*--instead of their internal failings. We want these characters to be right, to be trustworthy, and it takes some fancy footwork to keep them believable, likable, and also allow them to have the sort of faults that unreliable narrators display.
BuzzyLittleB's recently posted novel, Episodic Romance.
Oh, I forgot that one! It would have worked as a lovely example of a late-narrative reveal, too. Maybe I'll credit you and go back and stick it in, if that's okay?