The News From Poughkeepsie - Day 34

May 25th, 2008 • Related • Filed Under

Anything goes Sundays:

This past weekend at Balticon made me think a lot about my writing, my range, etc. Not going anywhere with this, yet, just sayin.

But I thought a lot on the drive home about the unreliable narrator, and started thinking about a girl who convinces herself she’s a mythical creature. Not on a mentally ill level, but she wants to do serious research on it. She’s an orphan of mixed race, and has some interesting talents (music, languages, pick one, i don’t care), which feeds her research. Whether you want to make this fantasy and make her right, or make it non-fantasy and have her either go the deluded route or learn something about herself, that’s your call.

The News From Poughkeepsie is a daily blog post featuring an idea for you to take and do with what you will. Read more about it here. This post is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license. You can take this idea, change it, make something new, and even make money off of it. All I ask is if you create something - anything! - that this post inspired you to make, please link back here.

There Are 4 Responses So Far. »

  1. Comment by Arkle on 26 May 2008:

    Whoa, freaky deaky coinkidink. My Mom and I had a fairly similar discussion about “unreliable narrators” last week. Dude.

  2. Comment by Steve Bickle on 27 May 2008:

    Or leave it for the reader to decide, that kind of ambiguity can work well as it leaves the reading thinking about the story. It worked well for Gene Brewer with the K-Pax books.

  3. Comment by Teltum on 27 May 2008:

    “So I’m a dragon. No, really, I’m just stuck in human form.”
    …
    “See I have horns!”

    Passer by, “sweety, thouse are zits.”

  4. Comment by solak on 31 May 2008:

    Oh, yes. I like the idea of leaving it ambiguous throughout the story. It would be harder to write, but that would also keep the reader’s interest that much more. K-Pax is an excellent example.

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