Unreliable Narrator Prompt Exploration
I had so many amazing English professors during my time in undergrad, particularly when the professor had a chance to have a topical 300-level course that they got to theme and fully design. One such fantastic class was an unreliable narrator English course. The books (and movie) we engaged with offered a spectrum of books that examined different styles of unreliable narration and the impact on the reader. (From the curriculum, I know we read Entries, Lolita, Fight Club, and Through the Arc of the Rain Forest.)
Back when I was living in the Bay, I created this particular prompt with my Oakland-based writing group. It is a way to explore a particular form of unreliable narration, leaning into more of the Lolita or The Catcher In the Rye style of unreliable narration (comparative to other texts where there’s limitations with the narrator’s viewpoint or there’s a cognitive experience that is incongruent with how others view what’s happening in the story).
Aspects of unreliable narration (mixed with a lot of narrative experimentation aka post-modernist writing) surface throughout a variety of stories and narratives I’ve been crafting. To Learn the Truth (a longer short story I wrote back in college, which is available for free to read on Substack) features a bit of a mix of both.
This is a multi-step writing prompt:
1) Listing Declaratives– Write a list of 10 very bold, definitive, declarative sentences or statements (examples: I am the most interesting person I know; The only coffee I’ll ever burden myself with tasting is from Dougie’s; I have never lied in all my life.) or, as an alternative, you can time yourself from 2-4 minutes to list as many response as possible.
2) Selection – Review your list of declarative sentences and pick one that you like the most (if you’re needing a rubric, lean into a sentence that is vibrant and that you want to build a character around).
3) Unreliable Narrator Prompt – Build a creative piece with the sentence or statement you chose, however, this statement must be a lie (but must not be directly called a lie). Explore the narrative dichotomy between this definitive statement and the rest of the story. (If you want a more difficult writing challenge, you can reverse this prompt, and have the declarative statement be the only true statement and build a creative piece encompassed by lies and half-truths).
If you decide to explore this prompt, leave a comment and share how the experience was or what the story was you explored. (I would LOVE to know your declarative statement as well!)