(has changed over time): originally, in the nineteenth century; it tended to simply mean… In later works of literature, this 'unreliability' was used by authors more deliberately… Nowadays, there's a lot more humour in unreliable narration

As I mentioned last week, we're going to look today at fiction writing, writing stories, and in particular at authors who have a reputation for creating characters in their books who are known as 'unreliable narrators'. Now what does that mean exactly? Well Originally, in the nineteenth century. it tended to simply mean that - as a reader - you just couldn't trust what the narrator of a story was telling you. This might have been because they were not giving you important information, or because they themselves as a character in their own story lacked some kind of personal insight. In later works of literature, this 'unreliability' was used by authors more deliberately, um, with the direct intention of making a story more complicated for a reader to understand - perhaps a crime novel. or a thriller. Nowadays, there's a lot more humour in unreliable narration and it's often used to make first-person characters enjoyable to read about. So, what all that tells us as a general starting point is that this type of narration ---.