4-Week: Writing the Unreliable Narrator

In this four-week workshop we'll study the different types of unreliable narrator and how unreliability is often the only way to access the "truth." While it could be argued any first-person narration is unreliable (or uncertain) we'll be looking at the intentional craft of such characters and the impact of such closeness to the story via the perspective used. While our intent is to create unreliable narrators we won't just write those unreliable narrators who deliberately skew or avoid the truth but those who are unreliable because they simply don't know any better. To help us enter into the heads and hearts of these narrators we'll draw from the long literary history of "The Liar's Club" where story blooms from tall tales, urban legends, gossip, and rumors. This class will be useful for anyone working in first-person, even if their characters aren't categorically unreliable. We'll study a diverse range of such characters from literature and use such examples toward the writing to come as facilitated by the writing prompts the instructor will provide in class. The reading homework will be required, but light, and for those interested, engaged, and with the free time to do so, there will also be writing prompts to do at home between class time.