Would she know she's doing it?

[David Evil Overlord]

Got a critique on a chunk of I, Singularity the other day.

The critiquer wanted to know why Our Hero said several sentences in a row that were meant to be statements, but all had question marks on the end. So they were questions, right?

Kind of. They were actually lies. Our Hero doesn't realise it, but when she lies, it comes out sounding like a question. That's why the people who know her really well know when she's lying.

She doesn't know it, until the day her boyfriend confronts her over the whole secret identity/super hero thing. He tells her how he knows when she's lying.

Now, as I see it, I have three choices here to make the story work:

1) The story is first person, and Our Hero is the narrator. So, if she doesn't know she's lying, I take out the question marks. Make her think she's making statements, while other people look at her oddly because her statements sound like questions. "Did you want me to answer that?"

2) Leave in the question marks, and come up with some way to tell the reader what she's doing, while not letting Our Hero in on the secret.

3) Abandon the whole idea...

Thoughts? Suggestions? Sarcastic comments?

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

It might help if we could see some examples.

Without that, I can only imagine that this would be very confusing to the reader. Let's make up a simple example. If Jane says "My name is Mary?" that looks really odd. I'd probably assume it's a typographical error. (Either that, or I'd assume that Jane is one of those very young women who make every statement sound like a question.)

I also have to wonder why the reader has to know something the narrator doesn't know. That kind of defeats the purpose of first person narration. Why would it not be more effective for the reader to find out, at a dramatic moment, that Mary is really Jane? Why does she need to know before the narrator does? (You can have a narrator who doesn't notice something that the reader is supposed to notice, but that's a different situation, and hard to do.)

If it's really important for the reader to know something that the narrator doesn't know, I can only suggest that you offer this information in a form other than first person narration.

 

[ZombieWife]

If this is a tick of hers, chances are, people have told her. Would she have gone her entire life without someone saying, "Why do you sometimes make comments that come out as questions?" It's a significant "tell."

Is she lying all the time? If so, someone would have probably called her out on it.
If she doesn't do it much at all, then it may need less clarification.

 

[hopewrites]

I'd leave the question marks in. And not tell the reader till S is told.

Incidentally, I do know my tell, and it doesnt come up when I think I'm telling the truth.

Ether I'm a very good lier, which I dont believe, or when she sincerely believes her statements they wouldnt come up as lies (lie detector tests can be fooled this way.)

 

[Boneman]

If it's not clear to a reader, it needs to be made clear. Simple. If you're trying to hide something from the reader so it's a wonderful reveal later, then you'll have to find another way, because I agree with Victoria, it'd look pretty silly having a statement with a question mark at the end of it - the reader will soon think 'does this writer know how to use punctation?'

"My name is Mary," she said, with a curious inflexion of her voice, rising at the end of her sentence, as though she questioned what she was saying.

Repeat that a couple of times and the reader should get the idea...

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Knowing how good your dialogue is... couldn't you indicate it in responses from others? Like Boneman says it would only take a couple of times for us to get the message. Your problem is if she's doing this and people aren't responding as if it was a question, then does it risk becoming disingenuous? -- if there is no response then she isn't asking it like a question, and if they are reacting and she isn't responding to that reaction then it makes her look, perhaps, a little dense?

 

[prizzley]

I'd leave the question marks in. And not tell the reader till S is told.

Me too. I don't believe most people would notice this trick. Ending sentences on a uplift when it's not a question is becoming more common, even on the BBC!

 

[chrispenycate]

Since this is first person, if she didn't know she was giving herself away like this would she even hear the question marks? Could she, without recognising what she's doing? So, as it's her consciousness we're observing the situation through, would those question marks exist?

Perhaps, if this is first person past tense her 'real time' consciousness has been informed about her tic, and she is assuming it was in her previous statements, because that's how she did things? Isn't that pushing supposition a bit far?

Sometimes information which couldn't have been known by a POV character until much later has to be introduced in sequence, but is this one of those times?

 

[Ursa major]

For the narration to include any mention of this, it requires either:

• another PoV character to think it;
• Our Hero to hear a recording of when she'd spoken that way, when she might find the inflection curious (but not in any other circumstance**), because she'd never heard it before.

Semi-seriously, wasn't there a time when a lot of speakers of Australian English added an upward, question-like, inflection to the end of their sentences? (I seem to recall a worry that it might be adopted here when soaps like Neighbours first washed up on our shores here in the UK and proved very popular with younger viewers).


** - If she always knew about the sound, it would hardly seem curious to her.

 

[David Evil Overlord]

Thanks for the responses, everyone.

My worry is that if I take the question marks out, and then later her boyfriend tells her whenever she lies it sounds like a question, then the reader is going to question if her earlier lies were questions when they had no question marks to mark them as questions...

But, if I leave them in, then the reader may well notice, and question the presence of question marks in what is clearly not supposed to be a question...

As for the lines in question -- Our Hero is accused of not knowing what Quantum Mechanics is/are/might be. Not wanting to appear stupid, she lies, and says Quantum Mechanics was a rock band in that ancient time her mother refers to as the When I Was Your Age.

P.S. Thank you for the comment on my dialogue, Springs. I'm actually wondering what I might be able to get away with along those very lines...

 

[EloiseA]

Hi David -- it's hard to give feedback without reading the text, but it does sound to me like a 'visual tick' aimed at the reader and likely to get in the way as the work progresses.

Do you know anything about the experimental French Oulipo writers? They used various constraints in writing almost as formal experimentation. A novel by Georges Perec (La Disparition) was written in its entirety without using the letter 'e'. The novels are fascinating but extremely tiring to read because any self-conscious device draws attention to itself (which is why we use the invisible 'he said, she said' and keep away from adverbs). Any question mark used for a purpose other than a genuine question would make the text self-referential and force the reader to stop following the story and ask if this was another lie popping up or not.

Although I'd need to read the text and see if it worked or not -- I like experimentation myself.

 

[David Evil Overlord]

Hi Eloise,
Haven't heard of them, but I get the idea. Hmmm. How to make it as invisible as she said, he said...?

 

[Glitch]

To me, the presence of a question mark indicates it is a question.

her boyfriend tells her whenever she lies it sounds like a question

Can you write the dialogue so that it sounds like a question, without out it being one.

Since this is written from her POV, she'll know she's lying? Alternatively, have the other characters answer her supposed question. Then we'll realise they thought it was a question.

 

[Montero]

Or pick a different tell - something physical not verbal - so there is less confusion for the people she is talking with.
I can't quite see how you'd get the question to work smoothly since, as has been said, the people she is talking with should respond to the questioning tone, maybe even saying "Is that a question?" or should look baffled by the tone and the content not matching. The latter could lead to her thinking everyone is a bit slow - what she is saying makes sense, why do they look baffled - but that too could get a bit boring for the reader and/or she is going to come across as very condescending and hence unappealing.

 

[David Evil Overlord]

I might have to put something up in critiques.

 

[chrispenycate]

Do you know anything about the experimental French Oulipo writers? They used various constraints in writing almost as formal experimentation. A novel by Georges Perec (La Disparition) was written in its entirety without using the letter 'e'.

Sounds as if someone's got a broken contact on his keyboard. Did he allow himself é and è (e accent aigu and e accent grave; if your screen's giving it as a question mark it's lying.) as these are separate keys on an azerty layout;D

 

[EloiseA]

It's not coming up unreadable for me, chrispenycate -- Google Oulipo if you don't understand what I'm talking about. The story of Georges Perec is very moving and I studied his work a few years ago.

 

[JoanDrake]

If it's not clear to a reader, it needs to be made clear. Simple. If you're trying to hide something from the reader so it's a wonderful reveal later, then you'll have to find another way, because I agree with Victoria, it'd look pretty silly having a statement with a question mark at the end of it - the reader will soon think 'does this writer know how to use punctation?'

"My name is Mary," she said, with a curious inflexion of her voice, rising at the end of her sentence, as though she questioned what she was saying.

Repeat that a couple of times and the reader should get the idea...

I have to agree, just tell people.

Think if she paused everytime and you put in a comma, "There wasn't anybody at the door,," she lied ineffectively as the cop followed her in.

 

[David Evil Overlord]

Wasn't trying to hide it from the reader. I was trying to hide it from the first person narrator.

So, if she admits to herself she's lying, then the reader should get it...

 

[crystal haven]

I would think a visual clue would work. Something she's not aware of doing, so the reader wouldn't see it either. Then it can be mentioned to her later - everytime you lie, you twitch your finger, or something like that. Especially if it's only one person who notices.