Quote for August

Say all you have to say in the fewest possible words, or your reader will be sure to skip them; and in the plainest possible words or he will certainly misunderstand them.

John Ruskin (1819 - 1900)

POINT OF VIEW EXERCISES

Point of View (POV) determines the person through whom the story is to be told, ie the narrator. The most common POVs in fiction are First Person, Third Person and Omniscient.

First Person means the story is told as "I". This creates an immediacy and intimacy between the narrator and the reader as the reader is right there inside the narrator's head, with access all the narrator's thoughts. There are, however, some disadvantages to using First Person:

you cannot include any scene at which your POV character is not present.

you cannot include any information your POV character would not naturally possess.

you must include all the information your POV character does have.

Third Person means the story is told as "he", "she" or "it". The advantages of Third Person are that you can still get into the POV character's head, but still see him/her from the outside. Third Person told from only one character's head is called Limited Third Party. Third Person using more than one POV is called Multiple Third Person.

Omniscient is a univeral POV which can get into the head of any character at any time. The author also injects himself into the story, commenting on the action and sometimes addressing the reader directly.

Exercise 1

Pick a story you know well - whether one of your own, or someone else's. List the five or six major characters and then re-write the story from the POV of a character the author did not pick as the POV character. Does the story seem to change? Are some scenes emphasised more, or less? Does the meaning of the story seem to change? taken from Character, Emotion & Viewpoint (Writer's Digest Books, 2005) by Nancy Kress

Exercise 2

Take a story you have previously written in First Person and rewrite it in Third Person. What freedoms do you now have using this narrator? Conversely, are there limitations in using Third Person? How has the mood of the piece changed?

Quote for July

Looking back, I imagine I was always writing. Twaddle it was too. But better far write twaddle or anything, anything, than nothing at all.~Katherine Mansfield

Writing the Big Dramatic Moment? Show Me

Writing the Big Dramatic Moment? Show Me

Addicted and Loving It!

Dear Readers - this story was on my old blog 'Goldie's Short Stories, Poems and Things'. It's one of my favourites so thought I would include it here...Goldie

The other morning over breakfast, my ever loving other half told me that I am addicted to my computer. ‘I’ve had enough of it and it has to stop,’ he gurgled as he slurped on his cup of tea.


I suppose he’s right – that I’m addicted that is. I do spend aeons of time sitting in front of that alluring screen oblivious to the world around me, but ‘heh!’ everyone has to have a vice don’t they?

It all started when my typewriter gave in to old age after years of faithful service. I like to write you see and I had pounded on those keys for more years than I care to remember.

‘What will I do?’ I asked myself. ‘Buy another typewriter or take a leap into the twenty-first century and acquire a computer’

My eldest son convinced me I should opt for the latter.

‘I’ll set it up for you Mum,’ he said and so together we made the purchase with lots of misgivings on my part. How in the hell would I ever learn to use the thing?

I began hesitantly at first, scared I would somehow damage it, blow it up, or worse still, have it crash and lose every single program, every bit of information I had saved into it’s hard drive.

‘What’s with this hard drive?’ I wondered as I battled along. ‘And then next they’re talking about software – it sounds a bit suspicious to me. Then confidence grew and along with it the computer’s power grew – completely over me! It wasn’t long before I was emailing, surfing the net – I must say here before I go on, ‘the biggest time waster in the universe’ and of course blogging. Also I mustn’t forget to mention building my own website. What an achievement that was for the likes of a more mature person.

I’m now bi-lingual too, English being my first language and computer patois my second. I’m rather proud of myself. I’ve always wanted to learn a second language and it has happened quite by accident.

Poor Hubby! He’s suffering or so he thinks, from lack of attention just because he has to do his washing, iron his shirts and make his own cups of tea.

‘Never mind, dear,’ I tell him. ‘Think of it as a learning curve.’

He threatens divorce, but do I care? No, of course not! He’ll never do it. He’d have no one to cook his dinner!

So, while hubby complains I compute, gripped by the tentacles of technology, addicted and loving it.

A Dancing Bear

Oh! My beautiful dancing bear
What have they done to you?
I remember when you danced free
Pirouetting through the forest
Like a ballet dancer
Graceful and agile
Thick, luxuriant coat, gleaming eyes
A confident demeanour

Then they came – they took you
You’re freedom gone forever
Trapped in a concrete enclosure
You sway and pace with lack-lustre eyes
My heart breaks

Children watch with fascination
They don’t know what it was you came from –
A paradise where you were free
Now a butterfly trapped in a spider’s web – my beautiful
Dancing bear
In the hands of humans I cry for you
And wish your death to come quickly
You would be better off
Yes, better off!