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ds_workshopSo. I'm a tiny bit late.
Okay, a lot late, and I'm very, very sorry. There were things, and then more things, and...well. It doesn't much matter, does it? Suffice to say that, once I stopped looking at this as an assignment and started looking at it as something fun, everything got a lot easier.
Hi. I'momphale23, and I'll be your slightly-nervous (okay, seriously petrified) guide to the wacky world of narrators you can't trust. Pull up a keyboard and tell me I'm wrong. Or tell me I'm right. Whichever.
[Fair warning. I'm pretty sure all of my examples are slash, because that's what I read. And probably F/K, for the same reason. The bullet points, though, are good for whatever pairing (or lack thereof) you prefer.]
Okay, a lot late, and I'm very, very sorry. There were things, and then more things, and...well. It doesn't much matter, does it? Suffice to say that, once I stopped looking at this as an assignment and started looking at it as something fun, everything got a lot easier.
Hi. I'm
omphale23, and I'll be your slightly-nervous (okay, seriously petrified) guide to the wacky world of narrators you can't trust. Pull up a keyboard and tell me I'm wrong. Or tell me I'm right. Whichever.[Fair warning. I'm pretty sure all of my examples are slash, because that's what I read. And probably F/K, for the same reason. The bullet points, though, are good for whatever pairing (or lack thereof) you prefer.]
Don't Believe Everything You Read
The first thing we learn in Trial Law is that witnesses are not to be trusted. They lie, they forget things, they fail to mention important facts. The quickest way to get five versions of events is to ask three people what happened. The same goes for fiction.
Case in point? “Seeing is Believing.” Three people, three versions of the same (brief) scene, all of them wrong in important ways. And that’s just an example where the speakers don’t have an interest in the events. When they do, it all gets a bit more complicated.
So let’s talk about unreliable narrators. What they are, why we love them, and (hopefully) how to make them work.
***
In reality, all narrators are unreliable. Anybody who’s in the story has a bias, has things they leave out, has a fault (or two, or three) that blinds them to the “real” version of events.
In short, never trust your narrator. Not when you write, and not when you read. He (or she) is trying to sell you something.
However. In this case, we’re going to pretend that there’s a difference between an ordinary narrator and this concept of unreliable narrator, narrators you really can't or won't trust any farther than RayK can throw a cigarette lighter, if only because eventually we’re going to get to the question of how, exactly, one writes such a character.
***
Point the first: for whatever reason (there are four, and we’ll get to that in a minute) what the narrator is describing isn’t actually what’s happening. This generally means that you’re writing in the first person, although (as we’ll see) when it comes to fanfic, the narrator is just as likely to be working in third person limited.
Omniscient narrators aren't unreliable. Well, not usually. When they are, readers get pissed off, and nobody wants that. So, for the sake of argument, let's say that as a rule you want your unreliable narrator to be both a) a character, and b) part of the story somehow.
This doesn't mean you have to stick to Ray or Fraser. It can be an outsider after the fact (as in the case of lamardeuse's "Evidence," in which the narrator is aware of the story but the events as provided by the secondary narrative are incomplete) or a character central to the story but not to the canon (as with Beth H's wonderful OFC, Sara, in "If It Walks Like a Duck...").
That's not to say that Ray doesn't make a damn good unreliable narrator. He's got issues, he's got an attitude, he's been known to make decisions without all the facts. In my own stories (yes, I know. But I've got a point to make, here. Who's leading this discussion, anyway?) Ray Kowalski is *always,* and I do mean ALWAYS unreliable. Sometimes it's obvious, as when he says one thing and does another. Sometimes it's subtle, as when he knows that Fraser loves him but Fraser never actually says the words.
For that reason, I never trust him when other people use him as a narrator, either.
Does this make it hard to point out specific ways to make him unreliable? Maybe. Does it make him a bad narrator? Not at all.
***
Point the second: your narrator is unreliable for a reason. Maybe multiple reasons.
Technically, there are four sources of unreliability: a) the narrator doesn’t know what’s going on, b) the narrator is biased, c) the narrator is lying, or d) the narrator is Teh Crazy/Drunk/Mentally Unsound. Each of these present its own challenges and benefits.
a) Writing an unreliable narrator who doesn’t have all the facts (or, in some cases, doesn’t have any of the facts) is perhaps the most common use of an unreliable narrator. Usually, this kind of narrator eventually figures things out (Barbara Kowalski in zillieh's "Eight Weeks" is an example of this), although not always.
[There's a fic in which Welsh, the new Consulate Inspector, and Frannie all observe Fraser and Ray and get it wrong that's a good example of the not-knowing narrator never getting a clue. Anybody know which one I'm thinking of, so I can add it in here? *smiles winningly*]
A large proportion of the unreliable narrators in due South fic fall into this category. We'd rather see Ray, Fraser, Ray, or anyone else confused and wrong than think that they'd lie to us.
Stories written from Victoria's point of view are often the exception that proves this rule.
b) A biased narrator is trying (whether he/she knows it or not) to make the facts fit their own agenda. Frannie-centric stories often come from this, as she fails to see the relationship between Fraser and one of the Rays. She's not lying, and she has all the information. She just doesn't usually see the truth because she *wants* it to be something else.
Stories featuring Stella (One example: "The Delivery," by Rustler) sometimes use this same conceit. She's smart, she puts two and two together--but she often gets an answer of five.
Bias can also be deliberately employed, but that walks a fine line between bias and lying. I've never managed it; I'd love to hear tips from anyone who has.
c) In all honesty, stories in which the narrator is flatly lying are difficult in fanfic. If the narrator is a character we love, lying probably pisses the reader off and gets read as bad characterization. If the character is one we hate, the fact that they're lying is no surprise, and not much of a stylistic draw. There are exceptions, of course (JS Cavalcante's "Straightness" is one) but by and large this is a difficult road to travel in fandom.
d) And, finally, we have Teh Crazy. And not just your run-of-the-mill due South "ghosts, talking wolves, and playing dead" crazy. We're talking Geoffrey Tennant levels of mental instability, usually. It's tough to balance the way that the world doesn't quite fit with the need to give the narrator some credibility, but it can be done. Many Ray-is-drunk stories manage this. As does the occasional Fraser-pov (Julad's "Shack #11" is a heartbreaking case in point.)
***
Point the third: Eventually, you’ll need to decide when to let your readers know about this lack of reliability.
There are three choices, here.
a) You can make it clear from the start that the narrator isn't to be trusted, as in Nemi's "Iqaqpaa." Amnesia fic, drunk fic, and any story with Dief as narrator probably uses this device.
b) You can use more than one point of view (but not, for the love of little green apples, in the same section) to play up the problems in each telling of events. If you do, the unreliability usually shows up when the second (or third) character takes over the narrative.
Speranza is my favorite author for doing this--in "Kowalski Is Bleeding," she does it very directly; in other stories like "Four Virtues," the effect is gentle but still clear.
c) You can keep your narrator's unreliable viewpoint hidden until a dramatic finish, one that throws everything into chaos and forces the reader to reconsider everything they thought they knew. Julad's story does this; so do a lot of first-time stories in which Ray (or Fraser) suddenly realizes that the other was flirting all along, or not really leaving, or secretly-gay-only-for-him, or...you get the idea.
A good example of this (as suggested byj_s_cavalcante) is "Episodic Romance," the recent long fic by buzzylittleb.
***
So. Those are the basics. How, why, and when to fit them into a story is the hard part. I think this is where the discussion should start because I *know* there are people out there better than me at this, but just to throw out some suggestions from how I try to do it, and how I see others making the same effort:
a) Pay attention to what the narrator doesn't say. If Ray's claiming to be calm, and yet you tell the reader that Fraser is looking concerned and nervous about Ray's tone of voice/physical gestures/bulging forehead vein, maybe Ray isn't being entirely honest about his state of mind. Same goes for Fraser thinking he knows everything but ignoring Ray's intuition.
b) Sometimes a character is behaving uncharacteristically for the sake of the story. An author with a decent track record for getting it right, who suddenly is drawing a very different picture of a beloved character, probably has a good reason. Chances are good that something you don't expect is going to happen, and you shouldn't take the character's observations as gospel. Reverse engineer this back, and you've got yourself an unreliable narrator.
c) Often it's easiest to start your experiments in unreliable narration with a character who's known for being clueless. The reader won't be surprised when things go cockeyed, but neither will you, and you won't need to worry about whether it's within the realm of plausible characterization.
d) Most importantly, experiment. Don't be afraid to write a story twice, if the first narrator doesn't work. Don't think that, just because Fraser's honest and forthright, he should always be trusted. At heart, writing with an unreliable narrator is all about calculated risk.
[ETA: Somethingkill_claudio said in the comments reminded me of one more point. Because we're writing fanfic, there's an interesting way that the collective understanding of the characters can be used to point out a narrator's unreliability that ordinary authors don't have. Especially in a fic where the pairing is announced up front, fannish readers have a particular lens for viewing the characters actions. As a result, reveals which would otherwise come at the end of a fic (as in Sihaya Black and Chickwriter's "A Fine Romance," kill_claudio's example) become clear much earlier. It changes the dynamic of the story, for good or bad. Either way, it's something to keep in mind if you're experimenting with unreliable narration and a popular pairing or character, because it can make the process both more complicated to read and more difficult to write.]
Thoughts? Questions? Examples? Letters calling for my resignation?
The first thing we learn in Trial Law is that witnesses are not to be trusted. They lie, they forget things, they fail to mention important facts. The quickest way to get five versions of events is to ask three people what happened. The same goes for fiction.
Case in point? “Seeing is Believing.” Three people, three versions of the same (brief) scene, all of them wrong in important ways. And that’s just an example where the speakers don’t have an interest in the events. When they do, it all gets a bit more complicated.
So let’s talk about unreliable narrators. What they are, why we love them, and (hopefully) how to make them work.
***
In reality, all narrators are unreliable. Anybody who’s in the story has a bias, has things they leave out, has a fault (or two, or three) that blinds them to the “real” version of events.
In short, never trust your narrator. Not when you write, and not when you read. He (or she) is trying to sell you something.
However. In this case, we’re going to pretend that there’s a difference between an ordinary narrator and this concept of unreliable narrator, narrators you really can't or won't trust any farther than RayK can throw a cigarette lighter, if only because eventually we’re going to get to the question of how, exactly, one writes such a character.
***
Point the first: for whatever reason (there are four, and we’ll get to that in a minute) what the narrator is describing isn’t actually what’s happening. This generally means that you’re writing in the first person, although (as we’ll see) when it comes to fanfic, the narrator is just as likely to be working in third person limited.
Omniscient narrators aren't unreliable. Well, not usually. When they are, readers get pissed off, and nobody wants that. So, for the sake of argument, let's say that as a rule you want your unreliable narrator to be both a) a character, and b) part of the story somehow.
This doesn't mean you have to stick to Ray or Fraser. It can be an outsider after the fact (as in the case of lamardeuse's "Evidence," in which the narrator is aware of the story but the events as provided by the secondary narrative are incomplete) or a character central to the story but not to the canon (as with Beth H's wonderful OFC, Sara, in "If It Walks Like a Duck...").
That's not to say that Ray doesn't make a damn good unreliable narrator. He's got issues, he's got an attitude, he's been known to make decisions without all the facts. In my own stories (yes, I know. But I've got a point to make, here. Who's leading this discussion, anyway?) Ray Kowalski is *always,* and I do mean ALWAYS unreliable. Sometimes it's obvious, as when he says one thing and does another. Sometimes it's subtle, as when he knows that Fraser loves him but Fraser never actually says the words.
For that reason, I never trust him when other people use him as a narrator, either.
Does this make it hard to point out specific ways to make him unreliable? Maybe. Does it make him a bad narrator? Not at all.
***
Point the second: your narrator is unreliable for a reason. Maybe multiple reasons.
Technically, there are four sources of unreliability: a) the narrator doesn’t know what’s going on, b) the narrator is biased, c) the narrator is lying, or d) the narrator is Teh Crazy/Drunk/Mentally Unsound. Each of these present its own challenges and benefits.
a) Writing an unreliable narrator who doesn’t have all the facts (or, in some cases, doesn’t have any of the facts) is perhaps the most common use of an unreliable narrator. Usually, this kind of narrator eventually figures things out (Barbara Kowalski in zillieh's "Eight Weeks" is an example of this), although not always.
[There's a fic in which Welsh, the new Consulate Inspector, and Frannie all observe Fraser and Ray and get it wrong that's a good example of the not-knowing narrator never getting a clue. Anybody know which one I'm thinking of, so I can add it in here? *smiles winningly*]
A large proportion of the unreliable narrators in due South fic fall into this category. We'd rather see Ray, Fraser, Ray, or anyone else confused and wrong than think that they'd lie to us.
Stories written from Victoria's point of view are often the exception that proves this rule.
b) A biased narrator is trying (whether he/she knows it or not) to make the facts fit their own agenda. Frannie-centric stories often come from this, as she fails to see the relationship between Fraser and one of the Rays. She's not lying, and she has all the information. She just doesn't usually see the truth because she *wants* it to be something else.
Stories featuring Stella (One example: "The Delivery," by Rustler) sometimes use this same conceit. She's smart, she puts two and two together--but she often gets an answer of five.
Bias can also be deliberately employed, but that walks a fine line between bias and lying. I've never managed it; I'd love to hear tips from anyone who has.
c) In all honesty, stories in which the narrator is flatly lying are difficult in fanfic. If the narrator is a character we love, lying probably pisses the reader off and gets read as bad characterization. If the character is one we hate, the fact that they're lying is no surprise, and not much of a stylistic draw. There are exceptions, of course (JS Cavalcante's "Straightness" is one) but by and large this is a difficult road to travel in fandom.
d) And, finally, we have Teh Crazy. And not just your run-of-the-mill due South "ghosts, talking wolves, and playing dead" crazy. We're talking Geoffrey Tennant levels of mental instability, usually. It's tough to balance the way that the world doesn't quite fit with the need to give the narrator some credibility, but it can be done. Many Ray-is-drunk stories manage this. As does the occasional Fraser-pov (Julad's "Shack #11" is a heartbreaking case in point.)
***
Point the third: Eventually, you’ll need to decide when to let your readers know about this lack of reliability.
There are three choices, here.
a) You can make it clear from the start that the narrator isn't to be trusted, as in Nemi's "Iqaqpaa." Amnesia fic, drunk fic, and any story with Dief as narrator probably uses this device.
b) You can use more than one point of view (but not, for the love of little green apples, in the same section) to play up the problems in each telling of events. If you do, the unreliability usually shows up when the second (or third) character takes over the narrative.
Speranza is my favorite author for doing this--in "Kowalski Is Bleeding," she does it very directly; in other stories like "Four Virtues," the effect is gentle but still clear.
c) You can keep your narrator's unreliable viewpoint hidden until a dramatic finish, one that throws everything into chaos and forces the reader to reconsider everything they thought they knew. Julad's story does this; so do a lot of first-time stories in which Ray (or Fraser) suddenly realizes that the other was flirting all along, or not really leaving, or secretly-gay-only-for-him, or...you get the idea.
A good example of this (as suggested by
j_s_cavalcante) is "Episodic Romance," the recent long fic by buzzylittleb.***
So. Those are the basics. How, why, and when to fit them into a story is the hard part. I think this is where the discussion should start because I *know* there are people out there better than me at this, but just to throw out some suggestions from how I try to do it, and how I see others making the same effort:
a) Pay attention to what the narrator doesn't say. If Ray's claiming to be calm, and yet you tell the reader that Fraser is looking concerned and nervous about Ray's tone of voice/physical gestures/bulging forehead vein, maybe Ray isn't being entirely honest about his state of mind. Same goes for Fraser thinking he knows everything but ignoring Ray's intuition.
b) Sometimes a character is behaving uncharacteristically for the sake of the story. An author with a decent track record for getting it right, who suddenly is drawing a very different picture of a beloved character, probably has a good reason. Chances are good that something you don't expect is going to happen, and you shouldn't take the character's observations as gospel. Reverse engineer this back, and you've got yourself an unreliable narrator.
c) Often it's easiest to start your experiments in unreliable narration with a character who's known for being clueless. The reader won't be surprised when things go cockeyed, but neither will you, and you won't need to worry about whether it's within the realm of plausible characterization.
d) Most importantly, experiment. Don't be afraid to write a story twice, if the first narrator doesn't work. Don't think that, just because Fraser's honest and forthright, he should always be trusted. At heart, writing with an unreliable narrator is all about calculated risk.
[ETA: Something
kill_claudio said in the comments reminded me of one more point. Because we're writing fanfic, there's an interesting way that the collective understanding of the characters can be used to point out a narrator's unreliability that ordinary authors don't have. Especially in a fic where the pairing is announced up front, fannish readers have a particular lens for viewing the characters actions. As a result, reveals which would otherwise come at the end of a fic (as in Sihaya Black and Chickwriter's "A Fine Romance," kill_claudio's example) become clear much earlier. It changes the dynamic of the story, for good or bad. Either way, it's something to keep in mind if you're experimenting with unreliable narration and a popular pairing or character, because it can make the process both more complicated to read and more difficult to write.]Thoughts? Questions? Examples? Letters calling for my resignation?
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Re: Ooh, shiny!
Date: 2007-06-07 10:41 pm (UTC)*nods* Yeah, Fraser is generally seen as speaking ex cathedra, just like Spock. (No surprise, considering Fraser is built on the Spock archetype. The parallels are, to coin a term, fascinating.) It's as though people see this character as carrying the assertions of the writer (and even those should be questioned, sez me!), and people seem to make a lot of allowances for what TPTB ostensibly intend to portray versus what the actors and the writers actually DO portray.
Here's an example: Fraser's scripted apparent interest in Lady Shoes (to be read as heteronormative) versus the many examples in that ep of Fraser's real interest in and love for Ray, conveyed by his actions (transgressive! To be read by any hetero-conditioned people as "not intended" by TPTB, even if it really was intended). The "heterosexual" veneer on Fraser in that ep is particularly thin; it reads to me as a sop to those who'd be offended by the homoerotic undercurrent.
Jeez, I'm sorry I'm not saying this clearly. I had a point, which was that the stereotypical "straight-male" way of viewing TV means trying to figure out what TPTB intend to say, and insisting that anyone who forms a different interpretation is committing "character assassination." (Slashers fought that "character assassination" slur for decades in Star Trek. Tell you about it sometime if you're interested. *g*) There's a good reference I could cite here if I could remember it. Might be Jenkins, but...might be somebody else. Darn. Can't remember. But there's research. In which the straight male fans overwhelmingly chose to try to figure out (via endless bulletin-board discussions) what TPTB meant to say and, by stark contrast, the females and some non-straight people overwhelmingly interpreted or reinterpreted what they as viewers saw through fanfic and other individual creative endeavors.
I'd love to see people really take on the challenge of making dS narrators unreliable in careful, true-to-canon ways. Like Welsh seeing Kowalski and Vecchio through his own relationship problems, or Thatcher failing to understand Turnbull's love of cheese.
Hee! Turnbull must be in heaven...he's so close to Wisconsin it can be a day trip. But yeah, Welsh totally misunderstanding RayK and his Stella issues would be good to see. I don't quite get the Vecchio comment, as Vecchio doesn't have that kind of problem with his ex in canon, or with Stella (what we see there is all good), but maybe you're talking about Louise or Suzanne-the-ATF-officer or Irene?
It could make for some great new stuff, even if it's the usual plots being reworked.
Yeah, it would be cool. It's not like there is a "new" plot on this planet, anyway. :)
Re: Ooh, shiny!
Date: 2007-06-10 03:28 am (UTC)Jenkins, I think. In his slash stuff and the Twin Peaks analyses, he talks about the difference between women and men approaching the narratives.
He may say it more clearly somewhere else, though. And I've seen other people talk about the differences as well. I tend to notice, because it's the sort of thing that I use in IR pop culture research, and (if I think I can get away with it) to illustrate issues in political science as well. It's amazing the stuff you can use fandom for. *g*
It's something that comes up in the questions of derivative vs. transformative texts, too, doesn't it? That somehow slash is coming to the original as something to take apart and rebuild, while the general fan is only interested in somehow 'getting it right,' interpreting rather than confronting.
I don't quite get the Vecchio comment, as Vecchio doesn't have that kind of problem with his ex in canon, or with Stella (what we see there is all good), but maybe you're talking about Louise or Suzanne-the-ATF-officer or Irene?
I was actually referring to Ray and Ray as paired with Fraser, and Welsh seeing it as nothing more than him comforting them when they strike out.
But I like the idea of Welsh misreading RayK/Stella and RayV/Stella as well.
(Erk. Sorry, Saturday night is not my most coherent.)
Re: Ooh, shiny!
Date: 2007-06-10 06:25 am (UTC)Yes, it was Twin Peaks, so you must be right. I have Jenkins' book on my shelf; I'll get around to checking at some point. :)
It's amazing the stuff you can use fandom for. *g*
Wow. And here I always thought IR had to be the most boring thing ever. Who knew? :)
It's something that comes up in the questions of derivative vs. transformative texts, too, doesn't it? That somehow slash is coming to the original as something to take apart and rebuild, while the general fan is only interested in somehow 'getting it right,' interpreting rather than confronting.
Oh, hey, I wonder if that's why transformative fanfic is overwhelmingly written by women? Because if you're a member of the group that gets the upper hand in the current social system (i.e., straight males), why would you want to challenge the system? There's a vested interest in taking TPTB's word for it.
I was actually referring to Ray and Ray as paired with Fraser, and Welsh seeing it as nothing more than him comforting them when they strike out.
Oh...I thought you meant with their wives/girlfriends. Your inclusion of Ray Vecchio there threw me off, because I don't see a slash relationship there. A writer would have a harder time making me believe in an F/V romance than they would making me believe Welsh misunderstands what's going on. I think Welsh avoids seeing a lot of stuff he doesn't want to see...and he's okay with a lot of weirdness as long as that case-closure rate stays high and his department stays out of trouble. So Welsh is actually an easy sell as an unreliable narrator. As is Frannie, who sees what she wants to see (Dead Men Don't Throw Rice is a huge, hit-em-over-the-head, canonical example), and the Duck boys, either version, who are spectacularly dopey sometimes.
But I like the idea of Welsh misreading RayK/Stella and RayV/Stella as well.
I like that, too! That would be very interesting! And Welsh obviously got divorced sometime between S1 and S3, didn't he? So, yeah, someone should write that. Not me, though, I have too many WIPs as it is, and I want to write F/K and maybe that Kowalski/Gardino I promised somebody. :)
Re: Ooh, shiny!
Date: 2007-06-15 01:36 am (UTC)That's true. But I doubt somehow that it works in both directions--there doesn't seem to be a higher proportion of straight men writing het relationships for shows like QAF or the L Word, so my assumption is that it's a systemic difference--that, as a whole, media is very traditionally gendered and so transformatic fanfic reacts to that, rather than to particular shows.
Your inclusion of Ray Vecchio there threw me off, because I don't see a slash relationship there.
Most of the time, neither do I. But I've been trying to make the whole discussion more inclusive, since my original post is a little F/K heavy. *shrugs*
Re: Ooh, shiny!
Date: 2007-06-15 01:55 am (UTC)You're right. I wonder if it's because those shows are already in the gay ghetto, so it doesn't matter to the general audience if they stay there?
What they really object to is our having the nerve to transform the traditional male hero types, right?
I had a surprising experience once when I explained the existence of K/S fic, and the fact that I wrote it, to an out-and-proud male friend. He freaked! More than many straight men have. He was like: "Noooooo! Kirk and Spock can't be GAY!" I was very surprised. It was also quite funny, though. Moi, cultural iconoclast. *buffs fingernails on t-shirt*
Re: Ooh, shiny!
Date: 2007-06-15 04:57 pm (UTC)Right. Heroes with feelings and doubts? What are they, *girls*?
They want mythic paradigms and traditional structure. We give them postmodern internal dialogue and homonormative universes. No wonder they get upset.
Moi, cultural iconoclast.
*showers you with well-deserved praise*
Re: Ooh, shiny!
Date: 2007-06-16 08:51 am (UTC)Hahahahahaha! Go, you!
Re: Ooh, shiny!
Date: 2007-06-16 03:13 pm (UTC)