How To Show Gaslighting In A Story Without The Narrator Being Aware

The other day I read a by Sue Fortain, called Sister Sister, a psychological thriller. It’s a gaslighting story. I love those.

I write those.

But this one was a little different.

Most thriller books of this nature rely on the villain’s POV to show you how the facts get twisted against the character.

This one doesn’t.

Instead, this book shows you the world 100% through the protagonists’ eyes. We are privy to her private and most intimate thoughts and feelings. Feelings that know something is wrong without any actual proof.

We see the challenge in the smile, the way things appear to happen, but the protagonist knows that’s now how they really happened.

We get glimpses of dreams that turn out not be not so innocent.

We also see how the people around her are worried and think she’s descending into madness. Of course, we know she’s not.

Or is she?

After all, when you are buried so deeply in someone’s head, you have no way of knowing what she’s seeing is the truth.

At first, the stakes seem small. A misunderstood message, a slashed painting, an afternoon out. But it’s these small, relatively minor stakes that feed into the deeper darkness of the overall book.

Once the ultimate twist is revealed, you realize that all these minor stakes weren’t so minor at all. So if you’re looking for a great book to shows gaslighting at its finest, then you’ll defiantly want to read Sue Fortain’s Sister Sister.