I don’t remember when I first formally learned about “unreliable narrators” in fiction. It was probably sometimes during junior high or high school. First, we had to learn about points of view, of course. Was the fiction written from a third-person or first-person point of view? If third person, were they omniscient? Limited omniscient?

From the title of this piece, you can maybe guess what I concluded: there is no such thing as a reliable narrator in fiction. It doesn’t matter whether the writing is third-person omniscient without a narrator or first-person with a narrator who confesses to intending to lie. They’re all unreliable.

For me, to suspend my belief in fallibility and selectivity is to assert that reality doesn’t exist. Or, at least, that if it does, it’s an entirely solipsistic reality. Because every writer makes choices about what to include in the narrative. Whether the writer inserts a narrator as intermediary or (sometimes from hiding) narrates to us directly, every narrative is biased and unreliable. For me, personally, the fact that I have epilepsy–with a lot of missing time as a consequence–makes the issue both personal and artistic.

I understand the use of implied unreliability as a narrative technique. I really do.

The book I’m trying to find an agent for right now is nominally third-person but is, we quickly discover, narrated by a dead paper tiger, Fred. Fred lies–sometimes subtly, sometimes boldly–about his own involvement in the story and about how the characters have been treated (favoring his friends and reporting negatively against his foes). These lies are intended to deceive. Though I, as the author, want readers to be able to spot “the truth” behind these lies, it’s still a fictional story–the “truth” I want you to spot is merely the lens I’ve adopted. I wrote a lying narrator because I think it makes it easier to show the truths I’m trying to show. And I’ve been delighted every time a beta reader has said “I’m not sure I trust that Fred is telling the truth.”

In the book I’m writing now, the perspective is first-person present (hiss if you must–there are good reasons for this choice, though it’s been a difficult perspective to maintain). The narrator, Knot, is utterly unreliable, but not because they are trying to influence the listener. Instead, it’s because they’ve grown up deceived about the nature of the world. Their raw observations are filtered into things only somewhat resembling truth (and again, remembering that I, as the author, have invented these truths). Also, they have a tendency to exaggerate.

I understand what’s meant by unreliable narrators. I just happen to think that all narrators are unreliable. The question, then, is how many stories are happening at once. Every author must choose what details to include. There is no accidental bird flying through a scene. The characters never accidentally stutter. The medium dictates that every detail is intentional, from the most banal to the most significant.

What will you do with all that power? Which people (of whatever stripe your book has) are so negligible they’re never mentioned? Which events are presented without their backstory because your readers will, you hope, fill in details? (And will all readers fill in the same details?)

I put my liars up front, as my narrators, because I think it allows me to be more deliberate in crafting what’s seen by the reader. But maybe I’m just too lazy to be omniscient. I hear it takes a lot of work.