Unreliable

    I never actually took Creative Writing, so my only exposure to the concept of the Unreliable Narrator is in the horror novel "Ghost Story" by Peter Straub. In it, our hero (a writer and writing instructor) goes through various frightening doings while serving as a guest lecturer at Berkeley, I think it was. He notes that his output during this time could have been an exercise in the Unreliable Narrator.
    I thought it was Secret Creative Writing stuff, some kind of arcane plot device. And maybe it is. But one thing I've noticed in my listening to old-time radio is that there are a lot of unreliable, even flat untrustworthy narrators running around. And equally unreliable characters. Because the writers get to their twist endings by lying to the listener. The narrator or the character him/herself present the character who turns out to be the murderer as if he/she is pure as the driven snow. Agnes Moorehead, who of course killed her husband (it's Agnes Moorehead, for goodness' sake) instead tells the microphone (there's no one else to hear; it's internal monologue) that she loved her husband and is going to find out who killed him whatever the cost.
    This is cheating. I appreciate that the writer only had a half hour to work with and probably only had a week to work in. But still. They could at least throw a bone and say that the character had a split personality or something. I think it would be fun to write twist ending stories where every line has been vetted to make sure that it doesn't contradict the ending. I mean you can be ambiguous all day long, but when the character says to him/herself "I must find the killer" but then turns out to be the killer, the listener can't help but feel cheated. Narrators: you just can't trust 'em.