A while back, I wrote a story for a blog hop. The story was about a group of people who lived their entire lives in a mine, and the one thing of beauty in their world. The beautiful thing–it’s a glass peacock–breaks, and the people who had idolized it… die.

And the whole thing is told from the POV of an official from the company who owns the mine.

The company that owns–if not actual slaves–a mine where the workers and their families never build lives separate from the mine. The official comes from a much wealthier segment of society than the miners, and is there to investigate the peacock, and whether its presence is financially acceptable to the company.

I thought all of that was clear in the story.

So, I posted the story, and got some feedback. Mostly from writers. All of it from very intelligent, if-they-didn’t-catch-it-it’s-probably-me type people.

NONE of the comments questioned whether the story really happened. NONE of them said anything about whether the person who was worried that a glass peacock was taking up too much space should really be allowed to testify for or against a rescue effort.

So, I’m looking at the piece again, and wondering if the reason no one questioned it is something missing in the piece, itself. Now, I know that some of this is glass-half-full/glass-half-empty, and that some of it is stylistic. I’m still working on pinpointing the line between too vague and spelling out too much.

Tell me what you think. How loudly do you announce that your unreliable narrator isn’t to be trusted?