Recent posts by Debby Harris on First and Third Person Limited Narrators and by Diana Hurwitz on Narrator Intrusion reminded me about one of my favourite ways of telling a story – via an unreliable narrator . Photo by Sam Beebe via Flickr I first came across this method in the book The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie. Below, between the brackets, is a major SPOILER for the book; highlight from one bracket to the other with your cursor to view the text . The book is narrated in the first person by Dr James Sheppard, providing a Watson to detective Hercule Poirot’s Holmes. [ The twist, though, is that Sheppard turns out to be the murderer, and ] Sheppard’s entire account of the case is called into question in the final pages. This particular technique is risky because it almost always requires cheating the reader by withholding information that the narrator is aware of. For this reason, I prefer using third person rather than first person for unreliable narrators ...

Photo by Ryan Wick , via Flickr As noted in my previous post , in First Person narration, the angle of vision is “single-track”. The central character is also the story-teller who addresses the reader directly, uses first person pronouns for self-reference, and recounts events in his/her own words. In Third Person limited narration, the angle of vision is similarly “single-track”. There is only one focal character, and our access to plot developments in channeled through his/her personal perceptions, experiences, and discoveries. But there the similarity ends. In Third Person Limited narration, the focal character is being viewed through a telescope wielded by the author. And this makes a Critical Difference. In Third Person Ltd. Narration, the character is oblivious to the fact that he/she is under observation. Meanwhile, the author plays the role of an on-the-scenes reporter operating under cover. Like a Nato observer, he/she uses third person pronouns when reporting n...