Working at a publishing house and editing a manuscript with an unreliable narrator is both fascinating and complicated to deal with. These stories do not give one person the whole truth, as there are many varied perspectives and interpretations, rather than a straightforward narrative where we know which protagonist to trust. Editors must walk the line between that mystery and making it all too obvious without revealing too much. The worlds created must be balanced ultimately with how the material is pushed, advertised, and presented to readers in the publishing realm.
An unreliable narrator can be successful in such stories where the truth has been buried to create a sense of tension and mystery because you never really know what fact and fiction are. But this device only works if the editor can hold the reader’s hand while leading them through a labyrinth of deceit without letting their grip slip.
If you were editing such a manuscript, one of your first tasks would be to figure out what type of unreliable narrator the author has written. Is the narrator intentionally misleading us or simply not perceiving events correctly? The big difference here is whether they are withholding something, or a perceptual flaw taints their very reliability. You need to deal a bit differently with each type of deception. If the narrator is out-and-out lying to you, then there needs to be enough subtle clues scattered throughout that it feels earned rather than a questionable deus ex machina by the time they tip over into frank disclosure. This might entail combing your manuscript for clues, reshaping dialogue, or reshuffling the events of a particular scene.
In publishing, this kind of editing is tied hand-in-hand with marketing and publicity. Unreliable narrators are frequently featured in books that fall within the mystery, psychological thriller, or literary fiction genre. Readers of these genres have certain expectations, so the mix of clarity/ambiguity between all aspects that make up your story needs to be executed perfectly. If it is too opaque, readers might feel frustrated; if it is too clear-cut, the suspense will be sucked out of a good mystery. In this scenario, an editor’s job is to ensure the author’s story comes out interestingly without giving too much away, holding back just enough twists for it not to appear at the wrong moment. Better still, the effort to balance works magic when you pitch your book. Lines like “dark psychological tale with unexpected twists” or a “slow-burn thriller with a shocking ending,” only land depending on how well secrets are kept at bay.
Equally important is the need to sustain the narrator’s voice over all these stories while editing. If your narrator can’t be trusted, they still need to elicit our interest. It helps strengthen the writer’s voice as they carry us into their story, regardless of whether it’s a lie or a con. It can be jarring unless the move from unreliable narrator to explicit truth-telling is managed carefully. The editor helps ensure that these shifts are warranted and contribute to the story as a whole, providing edits on how and when suggestions can be made regarding what the narrator does with their language, character, or POV. Engaging readers in this manner makes the narrator’s world plausible, even if that does not mean they are telling the truth.
Manuscript structure is another detail that editors must scrutinize carefully. How key information is revealed can significantly impact the reading experience—and not always for the better. Editors might ask that chapters be reordered or suggest adding scenes in two separate sections of the book, even where there is duplicate information but with subtle differences. A character witnessing a misleading scene makes it stronger than knowing the truth right before all is revealed, and likewise, deferring an important revelation adds to the suspense by making everyone turn just one more page.
Editors are that bridge between an author’s vision and the market in a publishing house. Not only do they have to improve the manuscript, but in addition to this, they are also responsible for making it reader-ready. That is to say, learning about that genre, researching its target audience, and finding out what sets a book with an unreliable narrator apart. They learn what tropes click, what twists strike a chord, and where the pitfall lies. This market intelligence allows agents to move authors through revisions, not just toward a well-told tale but also toward the finished manuscript being something that will sell.
In the end, editing a novel set within an unstable narrative is bloody work. Artificial intelligence and automated writing tools are capable of grammar checks and light editing, but are unable to wade through the details that grease a deceptive, unreliable narrative. AI can be a resource, although human editors have empathy and connection that we will never allow robots to develop. There are skills every editor or sub-editor must possess, such as knowing the delicate way a character’s voice should sound, understanding pacing, and what clues will be made too evident or when twists fall flat (in terms of evoking emotions from their audience).
When you edit a manuscript written in the voice of an unreliable narrator, it is not just about correcting missed punctuation marks or typos. This is a game of leading the reader through an elaborate lie, getting them halfway to a truth so they buy in as you open up. It comes from keeping the tension and suspense that keeps readers chained to your book for one more chapter. But it is the delicate blending by which a novel with an unreliable narrator becomes one that others cannot wait to discuss, recommend, and read all over again, even when they have reached their last page.