Feedback Wanted
First-person omissions are often more revealing than confessions. A narrator can leave a gap and still spend pages tidying the room around it, which is usually where the trouble starts.
I’m less interested in whether they are “reliable” in some tidy, exam-question sense. More in whether the silence feels chosen, frightened, ashamed, or simply useful. The interesting bit is the shape of the missing piece, and what the narrator keeps placing beside it so you won’t look too closely.
Readers notice more than we sometimes give them credit for. So do they trust the gap, or the careful little display built around it?
I’m less interested in whether they are “reliable” in some tidy, exam-question sense. More in whether the silence feels chosen, frightened, ashamed, or simply useful. The interesting bit is the shape of the missing piece, and what the narrator keeps placing beside it so you won’t look too closely.
Readers notice more than we sometimes give them credit for. So do they trust the gap, or the careful little display built around it?
The silence only works if the surrounding prose has enough weight to make it feel like a choice rather than a gap in the furniture. Otherwise it just reads as missing information, which is a different beast entirely.
In horror especially, I’m suspicious of narrators who keep arranging the room too neatly. A real omission usually leaves a stain somewhere. If it doesn’t, the book may be hiding less than it thinks.
In horror especially, I’m suspicious of narrators who keep arranging the room too neatly. A real omission usually leaves a stain somewhere. If it doesn’t, the book may be hiding less than it thinks.