Writing Women Who Aren’t Who They Seem in Fiction
Bestselling author J.T. Ellison breaks down writing women who aren’t what they seem in fiction in a way readers love.
Oh, these unreliable women.
I’ve been writing female characters who are complex, withholding, and morally ambiguous for many years now. Almost all of my standalones are built on the shifting sands of unreliability. It makes it fun as a writer, and I know it makes it fun for the reader. Not knowing exactly who is telling the truth is a hallmark of mystery and suspense, and it’s one of my favorite things to write.
The two main characters in my new novel You Know Why are polar opposites. Brooklyn Locke is a young mother who has been tamed by suburbia. She’s a former culinary photographer who traveled the world as the primary photog on a Bourdain-esque TV show. After the show’s untimely demise, she ends up in Mexico, where she meets her now-husband, Trey Locke. They get pregnant, get married, and move to Nashville—in that order. Now, nearly 10 years later, they have an established, almost prosaic life. It’s hard on nomads to settle. So when her steady, home-loving husband suggests a last-minute overseas adventure to Italy, Brooklyn leaps at the opportunity. All is well until they reach the airport, are rebooked through Atlanta, and Trey disappears from the airport.
My other main character, Eden Barrow, is the yin to Brooklyn’s yang. She lost her younger sister to murder, and that incident has her stuck in the past. She, too, travels for work, as an employee of a major airline, has seen the world, and been stationed in far-flung locales. But Eden is in stasis, ever searching for her sister’s killer. She is mired in grief, unwilling, or unable, to move forward, to have a life.
Until she sees her sister’s killer on a flight, approaches him, and he runs.
These seem like straightforward women with understandable motivations.
Neither are what they seem. They are Janus twins, each dealing with an unfathomable loss—one current, one 10 years hence—tied together through a man that both think they know—and neither do.
When dealing with unreliable narrators, the author has to know the why behind these untrustworthy characters. Namely, who are they lying to? The reader? The other characters? Themselves? Or are they psychotic and unable to discern reality from fantasy? Each “style” of unreliability creates its own set of rules, its own issues. You have to play fair with the plot, and with the reader, give them enough to leave them unsettled without giving away the whole story until just the right moment. It’s even more fun when the reader doesn’t realize they’re dealing with an unreliable narrator until the last second.
But one must go carefully into this breach, because the slightest whiff of deception and the reader will get fed up and lose sympathy with the character. Their deceit must be understandable and relatable, and not so far-fetched that it comes out of left field. We are all organic creatures and have things we don’t share with other people. Treated with this level of sensitivity, the reader will forgive the deception, even ask themselves the golden question: What would I do in this situation?
Secrets are the core of our beings. We all have them. So do our characters. Find out what a character will kill to keep hidden, and voilà—suspense at its finest.
That’s the connection I hope readers have with Brooklyn and Eden. When they find out each woman’s truths, they will be asking themselves if they, too, would have hidden those parts of their past if it meant having a life, love, and some semblance of happiness.
Check out J.T. Ellison's You Know Why here:
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