7 Tips to Using an Unreliable Narrator

Harley Quinn

The Harley Quinn series is what prompted this topic.  I stumbled onto people complaining about how some villains were being shown in the series.  They thought they were too goofy or made to be stupid.  Other people eventually arrived to point out that this series is probably from Harley’s perspective.  She’s not sane, which makes her a rather unreliable narrator.  So, that’s how I started thinking about this topic.  Now, let’s see if we can get a few tips on how to do this.

1. You can’t make it 100% obvious that the narrator is being bias or unreliable.  People can figure it out from clues, but there needs to be some level of faith in being told some real facts.  If the audience knows that they are being lied to entirely then they can lose both interest and investment in the story.
2. An unreliable narrator doesn’t always have…