Question 1

What is an unreliable narrator?

Accepted Answer

A narrator whose account **cannot be taken at face value** — and the technique only works if the reader is given the means to see past them, which is what separates it from simply being misled.

**The essential mechanism.** The reader must be able to detect the gap between what the narrator says and what is actually the case. That requires **evidence within the text** the narrator does not control: other characters' reactions, physical details that contradict the account, internal inconsistencies, or a tone that does not match the events described.

**Without that, it is not unreliable narration; it is a lie told to the reader**, and the difference determines whether a revelation feels earned or cheap.

**The types, which serve different purposes:**

**The deliberately deceptive narrator**, concealing or distorting knowingly.

**The self-deceiving narrator**, who believes what they say and is wrong about themselves. Frequently the most affecting version, because the reader watches someone fail to see something.

**The naive narrator** — a child, or someone outside the culture they describe — who reports accurately but **misinterprets**, so the reader understands more than the narrator does. This produces sustained dramatic irony.

**The impaired narrator**, affected by illness, memory failure, trauma or intoxication.

**The morally unreliable narrator**, factually accurate but whose judgements the reader is expected to reject.

**Why it is used.** It makes the reader **active** — constantly assessing rather than receiving. It allows a character study from inside a perspective the author does not endorse. And it makes truth itself a subject, which is why it recurs in fiction about memory and self-justification.

**Where it fails:** when the unreliability is revealed only at the end with no prior evidence, which readers experience as a trick; when it is so heavy-handed that the reader outpaces the author immediately; and when it is used to excuse a plot that does not work.

**In first person it is most natural**, but **limited third** can be unreliable too, since the narration is filtered through a character's understanding.

**Non-fiction has an equivalent** in memoir, where memory is acknowledged as fallible.

Question 2

What is a character arc?

Accepted Answer

The internal change a character undergoes across a story — as distinct from the plot, which is the sequence of external events. The two are connected: in a well-built story, the plot is what forces

Question 3

Can a novel be libellous?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Calling something fiction is not a defence, and publishers take this seriously enough that legal reads are routine for memoir, and not unknown for novels. The basic test. Defamation generally

Question 4

What does 'voice' mean in writing?

Accepted Answer

The consistent, recognisable quality of a writer's prose — the sum of choices that make one writer's paragraph identifiably theirs. It is frequently discussed mystically and is in fact composed of

Question 5

What are the different points of view in fiction?

Accepted Answer

Who is telling the story and how much they can know — a decision that constrains everything else, and one that is difficult to change once a draft exists. First person. I walked in. The narrator is a

Question 6

What is an info dump, and how do you avoid one?

Accepted Answer

A passage delivering a large quantity of background information in one undramatised block — and it is a problem not because readers cannot absorb information, but because they have no reason to want

Question 7

What does 'show, don't tell' actually mean, and is it always right?

Accepted Answer

It means dramatising something so the reader infers it, rather than stating it — and no, it is not always right. Treated as an absolute rule it produces bloated, exhausting prose. The distinction.

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