Unreliable Narrators, Plus “Writing Young Adult Fiction For Dummies” Giveaway Winner

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THE WINNER AND A WRITING TIP…

I’m happy to announce that Lauri C. M. won the WRITING YOUNG ADULT FICTION FOR DUMMIES signed book in last week’s giveaway! Lauri, I’ll send you an email. For all readers, I share this tip from WRITING YOUNG ADULT FICTION FOR DUMMIES: To win over readers to an unreliable narrator, keep the narrator sympathetic so readers will want to believe him even while they fear they can’t. You can show evidence that he’s been wounded by life or has goodness somewhere in him, have him embody traits that your target readers struggle with themselves and can thus sympathize with, or put him in situations that allow readers to feel bad for him even as he jerks them around. 

Happy writing!
The Editor

The Editor, Deborah Halverson, has been editing books for over 25 years and specializes in Middle Grade/Young Adult fiction and nonfiction, New Adult fiction, and picture books. For her editorial guidance in making your manuscript ready for submission to agents and publishers or for self-publishing, click Editorial services.

8 Comments

  1. good advice for unreliable narrator..this is a step up on my writing fiction technique from “Rose Alone” my first published novel. But I cannot print your advice off your site. perhaps this is deliberate? ..which is fine. Thank you.

    • Glad you find this advice helful, Sheila! Regarding printing the post — hmmm, I haven’t deliberately set this to be unprintable. When I’m viewing the post on my Mac laptop, I can choose PRINT then SAVE AS PDF and I can capture the post for printing, or I can choose FILE > EXPORT AS PDF and then print that. When viewing the post on my iPhone, I can choose SHARE then PRINT and the post is printable. I’m hoping one of these paths will work for you. Best to you.

    • Congratulations, Lauri. I hope you find it useful and fun — I sure tried hard to make it both! Wishing you success with your WIP.

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