Timeline for What constitutes misleading the reader
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
5 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Jul 22, 2017 at 19:38 | review | First posts | |||
| Jul 24, 2017 at 17:56 | |||||
| Jul 22, 2017 at 14:55 | comment | added | user16226 | Yes, I like that formulation. There may be specific exceptions -- the detective before the big reveal in a classic whodunnit knows more than the reader, for instance, and of course a messenger who has not yet delivered their message knows something the reader does not yet know -- but as a generality, I think this is right. | |
| Jul 22, 2017 at 14:32 | comment | added | Ben Carlsen | Perhaps I should rephrase: It's certainly fine for the reader to to more than the characters know, but the reader definitely shouldn't know less. If the character is dreaming, but they don't know it, the reader could still be informed that it's a dream. If the character does know it's a dream, however, the reader should also be informed of this. The reader should not be given the impression that it's reality. | |
| Jul 22, 2017 at 11:09 | comment | added | user16226 | I disagree. The reader is always conscious that they are a reader. If they pretend to be the character, they are conscious that they are pretending. They never experience what the character experiences. Re dreams: The reader is awake, a state fundamentally different from dreaming. When we are dreaming, we don't know we are dreaming. When we are awake we know we are awake. And dreams are recalled only in wakefulness. We have no access to dreams except through our memory of them on waking. Therefore neither the reader nor the character can be aware of the dream except in the waking state. | |
| Jul 22, 2017 at 2:14 | history | answered | Ben Carlsen | CC BY-SA 3.0 |