Tag: point of view

Posted on

Read/Write Challenge – Day 30

Hi readers! We’ve come to the last day of our challenge. And our last short story, “A Visit of Charity,” by Eudora Welty. The story is about a young girl who has to visit an elderly person in order to earn points as a campfire girl and sets off on the bus with a potted plant to visit some old ladies in a nursing home. It is a humorous encounter between youth and age. The two bickering old ladies the girl visits descend upon her, questioning her, drawing her into their ongoing feud, and, even as she’s leaving, begging her for money. The girl is repulsed by everything about the experience. She is doing it only because she has to and can’t wait to escape. 

One Thing I Noticed: The story is written in the third person limited point of view. We are privy to the girl Marian’s thoughts, but no one else’s. In a lot of ways, this can be the best of both worlds.  The reader is not trapped in the head of a single character but can roam about and observe things independently. But there is continuity in following the experience of one character that you lose if you write from the third person omniscient point of view, which gives the reader access to the thoughts and feelings of all of the characters.

One Idea: Play with genre. Try writing one kind of story in the style of another. “A Visit of Charity,” for example, is a humorous little drama that unfolds like a horror story. The old ladies have animal and plant qualities; when they laugh they sound like bleating sheep and their hands feel like clinging petunia leaves. The place feels damp and “smells like the interior of a clock.” We see the terror rising in the main character, until she finally breaks free, pursued, asked to stay for dinner, as if the place itself wants to consume her. Try writing a suspenseful love scene, a mystery in the form of a fairy tale (or vice versa), a ghost story that unfolds as a romantic comedy, or a sci-fi story as political satire.

Posted on

Read/Write Challenge – Day 23

Hi readers! Ready for another short story? Today let’s look at a piece of contemporary fiction, The Boundary, by Jhumpa Lahiri, published in the January 29, 2018, issue of The New Yorker.  The story is told from the point of view of a teenage girl whose immigrant family works to keep up the vacation house where a writer (maybe the author?) and her family are staying while on vacation. We learn quite a lot about the narrator through her voyeuristic recounting of the family’s stay.

Incredibly, Lahiri taught herself Italian and wrote this story first in Italian and then translated it into English. Check out this earlier interview–in which she discusses the difficulties and rewards of writing in a different language and of translating her own work–and an excerpt from her book, In Other Words, her dual-language memoir about what prompted her to reinvent her writing life in this way.

One Thing I Noticed: As Lahiri notes in the interview, there are things about this story that we as readers simply don’t know. We know that this is a vacation home, maybe in Italy, but nothing more specific. We know that the narrator’s parents are immigrants struggling to fit in in a foreign place, but nothing about where they’ve come from. We only know what the narrator knows or cares about and, to her, the place where her parents came from, which they may not talk very much about, is simply not worth mentioning.

You might note this, as a reader, and appreciate the fact that it gives the story a more universal applicability. Cool, you think, these could be the experiences of a lot of different people, in a lot of different places.

But as a writer, this is a pretty big deal! One of the most paralyzing things about sitting down and putting words on a blank page is the thought that you need to know everything about a place, or a person, or a situation, before you can write. Unless you’ve lived a jet-setting, adventurous life, writing what you know gets boring. But writing what you don’t know seems risky. You might misapply a fundamental law of physics if you try to write sci-fi, or write about a historical character using a household appliance that was not invented during her lifetime. So yes, sometimes research is necessary. But sometimes it isn’t. If you don’t know something, just say your character doesn’t either and charge right ahead, describing things just as your character sees them and just as he or she understands them. You can use point of view to get yourself off the hook sometimes.

One Idea: Think of a vacation you have been on. Write about yourself and your fellow vacationers from an outsider’s point of view, someone who knows nothing about you except what can be observed. Treat yourself anonymously. Tell us something about your narrator based on what details about you he or she notices.

Posted on

Read/Write Challenge – Day 10

Hi readers! My apologies for this late post! I was traveling most of the day yesterday and could not find a moment to sit down at my computer. Although I often do my daily writing and post it the next day, I try to keep the weekend posts current for you. But remember there is no need to wait for me! Our whole reading list of weekend short stories can be found here.

Yesterday we read “The Yellow Wall-Paper,” by Charlotte Perkins Stetson, an 1892 story about the progression of a woman’s mental illness that reveals much about then-contemporary attitudes toward women’s health. The narrator tells us, through a series of diary entries, that she has been diagnosed–by her husband and brother, both doctors–with a “temporary nervous depression – a slight hysterical tendency.” Her treatment consists of removal from ordinary life and tasks (she is not permitted to work or to do anything intellectually stimulating, like writing), a lot of fresh air, and rest. This seems to have quite the opposite of the desired effect, as the narrator becomes obsessed with the intricate wall-paper of the room she is confined to in a vacation home she is staying in with her husband. We witness the steady loss of her grasp on reality.

The story is considered an important early work of feminist literature, revealing the oppression of 19th century patriarchal society and the ill-effects of a woman lacking any sort of life outside the home. Read more here about how the story was inspired by the author’s own experience.

The story is also often placed in the gothic/macabre/horror genre, for its intimation of a haunting and exploration of mental illness.

One Thing I Noticed: This story makes very effective use of an unreliable narrator: a narrator who is too subjective to be entirely credible, whose personal experience does not correspond to reality, or who, frankly, we suspect might be lying to us (or to herself). The first time the narrator mentions the damage “the children” have done to the nursery, we accept this as true, but it becomes clear as the story goes on that the narrator herself is likely the one who has done these things, over her period of confinement. This realization makes us question other things that the narrator reports, such as what her husband and their housekeeper have done or said to her.

In some ways, you have an unreliable narrator problem any time you write from the first-person point of view, because there is no such thing as a perfectly objective character. But in cases of mental illness, altered states, and stories told from more than one character’s point of view, the unreliability can be an effective tool for engaging the reader in the story. We are not passively receiving this story, but actively trying to figure out which parts of it are true and which are imagined.

One Idea: Write a story in which your character becomes obsessed with something. Let this obsession unfold over time through a series of diary entries or other writings (blog posts, e-mails, notes from therapy sessions, etc.).

And now, on to our weekday freewriting sessions! If you’re new to the challenge, read more here about how we are working this month with literary writing prompts. Happy writing!

Posted on

Read/Write Challenge – Day 2

Okay readers, time for the first short story on our list, “Ghosts,” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. As promised, here is one thing I noticed about Adichie’s writing and one idea the story gave me for my own writing. 

One Thing I Noticed: The story is written from the first-person singular point of view. The narrator is a retired professor who runs into an old acquaintance who he thought died years ago. The two have a somewhat tentative conversation, and the narrator realizes how much their paths have diverged. Rather than tell us about the main character through third-person exposition, Adichie gives us his background story in bits and pieces, through the conversation and through the memories that the conversation sparks in the narrator’s mind.

First-person is a good point of view to use when blurring the line between what is real (here, what happened to the narrator’s family after the war) and what may not be (the visions of his wife’s ghost visiting him) because everything that is happening to the narrator is real, at least to him.

One Idea: Write a story about a person who does not believe in ghosts and is visited by one.

* * *

Read more here about Biafra and the Nigerian Civil War.

And check out both Adichie’s novel Half of a Yellow Sun and Chinua Achebe’s (author of Things Fall Apart) 2013 memoir There Was a Country.

If you would like to read ahead this month, here is the whole reading list of short stories. Happy reading!

Posted on

StoryADay May – Day 30 – A Different Point of View

Hi writers! The second-to-last day of StoryADay May is here! For today’s prompt, we’re going to take something old and make it new again, by switching up the point of view. Have your narrator stand in someone else’s shoes.

Day 30 Prompt: “Take a story that you wrote earlier this month, and tell it from a different point of view.”

Posted on

StoryADay May – Day 19 – First Person P.O.V.

Hello raconteurs! Today we switch from dialogue to monologue, writing a story from the first person point of view. Remember, the “I” in your story doesn’t have to be you. Maybe your narrator is an extremely unreliable person. Maybe he or she is going to take us back in time a bit (“it all started the week after finals, my freshman year of college …”). Maybe the “I” in your story is a fly on the wall, giving us a first-hand account of a famous event. Or of a completely fictional event.

Day 19 Prompt: “Tell A Story ‘Direct To Camera.’ This is probably going to be in first person. Write as if you’re writing to your best friend, or talking directly to a police officer, or relaying this to a room of strangers.”

For inspiration and ideas for opening your story, check out some of the true (though I suspect in some cases embellished) stories at The Moth.

Posted on

StoryADay May – Day 1 – Points of View [updated: Ms. Rankin’s Untimely Demise]

It’s the first of the month, writers. Time to begin a new challenge! If you don’t already know all about StoryADay May, check out the challenge description here at Write Words Now. And you can find lots of additional information and resources at the official StoryADay website. What kind of story can you write in only one day? A short one, probably. But I think we will surprise ourselves. I was surprised by how much I was able to write in just 30 minutes when I did the warm-up story prompt last week.

And check out the three tips for success from the most recent StoryADay podcast:

1. Keep a list of “story sparks,” and commit to writing down three new ones each day. These are not fully fleshed out plots, just the sparks of ideas. Here are a few from my list: a dog named Venkman; the safe in the beach house basement; the appointment of Britain’s first loneliness minister; a love story in travel posters.

2. Even if you don’t have time to write in the morning, think about the prompt and launch your idea first thing. Your brain will start working on the problem in the background, giving you insight throughout the day. And if you can write at least a few sentences, you have a solid start that you can pull out in the elevator, on the train, or in line at the store. Those scrawled sentences add up!

3. Finally, since this month is all about training our brains to write stories on demand, let’s conduct a little experiment. Remember Pavlov’s dog? Scientists rang the bell every time they fed the dog and, eventually, the dog would just start salivating when it heard the bell, even if there was no food around. So think of a sensorial trigger, a scent, a sound, a color (something portable so that you don’t have to be at your desk to make it work) and begin each of your writing sessions with that thing. Maybe your notebook is bright red. Maybe you have a little soundtrack that you listen to each time you start to write. Maybe you light a scented candle, chant three ohms, and bow to your creator (this might also clear you some space at that crowded coffee shop).

So, how will this work? I am going to follow the StoryADay prompts, at least at first. My plan is to share the prompt in the morning and then post an update with my story later in the day or the following morning. Good luck writers!

Day 1 Prompt: “Write a story about someone who leaves the house for work, and on the way has some kind of accident.” Write the story in three parts, of about 300 words each. Part 1: from the point of view of someone close to the main character; Part 2: from the point of view of someone who sees the main character only occasionally; Part 3: from the point of view of someone who has only just met the main character.”

[UPDATE]

Ms. Rankins Untimely Demise

Eleanor

I told her those shoes were trouble. Black suede Louboutins with a five-inch heel. You know the ones I’m talking about, with the flash of red soles. Just vulgar. Like a gaping wound. Like giving everyone a look up your dress. Susan loved those shoes. She thought they made her seem formidable. Susan was formidable. But it was important to her that she look the part.

You have to understand how it started, when she made partner at that big wall street firm—you know, the one with six names? Can you imagine answering the phone there? Poor girls. I guess when your former partners include supreme court justices and a vice president, you’re not in a big hurry to change your letterhead. Susan was the first woman to make equity partner at that firm. And, naturally, the guys gave her a hard time. She had to always be one step ahead of them. To start with, Susan was no den mother; she gave her associates hell. And the men respected that. I mean, she’d have you bring her a knife so she could stab you in the back with it. They called her Cutthroat. Behind her back, sure, but then later to her face. She loved that.

But Susan had another side too. Because they were men, after all. Don’t get me wrong. She didn’t lead anyone on. No, but the way she presented herself, the way she came to see herself, was as this perfectly desirable being. Perfectly desirable and perfectly unattainable. They respected her, like some beautiful, poisonous snake. You know the ones I’m talking about? On the Discovery Channel or something? Susan was a black mamba. Slender, powerful, with those big staring eyes. And fast. She would strike at a distance, never content to lie in wait.

In the end, they were scared of her. You notice they didn’t put up much of a fight when she walked out the door one day, taking a third of their clients with her, to some office in an exposed-brick loft in Chelsea. I can hear their little hearts thumping in their chests now. Prey always knows when it’s just escaped by the skin of its teeth.

And the loft! Oh my god Susan loved that old building. She loved how it made her highbrow clients a little uncomfortable. She thought it made them respect her more. She loved how the grit of the old place enhanced her polish. The incongruity of it all; she got off on it.

Even that shitty elevator! Especially that shitty elevator. I’ll never forget this one time, when opposing counsel was late for a deposition—very unlike him—Susan marched down six flights of stairs to the security office to speak to the guy through the intercom. She told him to quit being such a baby, that he would be out in a minute. Then she slipped the security guard a twenty, telling him to take his time calling the fire department.

I always thought the elevator was dangerous. But this … I mean, my god, this was criminal. The news said “severe mutilation.” Those words. A direct quote from one of the first responders. There’s going to be a huge lawsuit over this. Mark my words, Jeffrey and the twins will be set for life. And, I guess now they don’t have to put up with any more of Susan’s shit.

Manny

     THE COURT: Raise your right hand, please.

(Witness sworn.)

MANUEL ORTIZ,

called as a witness herein, having been first duly sworn, was examined and testified as follows:

DIRECT EXAMINATION

BY MS. MESSING:

Q. Mr. Ortiz, could you please introduce yourself and spell your name.

A. I’m Manuel Ortiz—M-A-N-U-E-L—O-R-T-I-Z. You can call me Manny. I work front desk security at The Commons.

Q. Did you know the deceased?

A. Oh yes, everyone knew Ms. Rankin. She had her office on the top floor of the building. I knew her for about three years, ever since I started working there.

Q. And did Ms. Rankin typically take the elevator to her office?

A. Yes.

Q. Manny, were you working the front desk at The Commons on the morning of June 11, 2008?

A. Yes, I was.

Q. Can you tell us, in your own words, what you saw that morning?

A. Sure. Okay, so it was a Monday. A little after nine o’clock. I remember that because it was unusual for Ms. Rankin to arrive at work so late on a Monday. But you know, she had been working day and night on a big case. When she did that, she might work all weekend and then come in late on Monday.

Q. Did Ms. Rankin seem to be in a hurry?

BY MR. CARTER: Objection. Why is that relevant?

THE COURT: Overruled. Ms. Messing, you asked him to tell it in his own words. Are you going to let him?

BY MS. MESSING: I am, your honor.

THE COURT: Mr. Ortiz, you can answer.

A. Yeah, she was in a hurry. But Ms. Rankin was one of those people, she was always in a hurry. She came through the door and said hello—Ms. Rankin always said “Good Morning Manny. She’d ask about my wife, my kids. She was always real nice to us who worked in the building. But that day, she came through the door and she saw that the elevator door was open. There were two people in there already, a man and a woman. And Ms. Rankin …

Q. Manny, can I just interrupt you for a second. The man and woman in the elevator, were they Mark Felter and Elise Paige?

A. Yes. I learned later that’s who they were. I didn’t know their names then.

Q. But you recognized them from the building?

A. Mr. Felter I did. I think the woman was not from the building.

Q. Thank you. Please continue.

A. So Ms. Rankin yells out for them to hold the elevator. And they did. Mr. Felter put his arm across the doors so they wouldn’t shut. After a few seconds the doors would try to shut anyway, but then the sensor opens them again. With that elevator, you could do it three times, I think, before a little buzzer went off.

Q. Then what would happen?

A. Nothing. The doors would still open if something triggered the sensor. The buzzer was just like, telling the people to hurry up, you know, they can’t hold the elevator all day. So the buzzer went off, but Mr. Felter was still holding the door open. Ms. Rankin stepped into the elevator. She had, like, one foot through the door, and Mr. Felter stepped back, to let her in. And then, the elevator, it just shot up, straight up, with no warning.

Q. What did you do?

A. It took me a second to realize what happened. I mean, Ms. Rankin didn’t cry out or anything. There was just this crack, and this horrible grinding noise, as the elevator tried to keep rising up. But then I heard Mr. Felter yelling, he was just saying “Oh my god, Oh my god!” And the woman, Ms. Paige, she started screaming. Screaming and crying and pushing down the emergency call button.

Q. Did you call the fire department?

A. I ran over to the elevator first. Then I radioed my partner to call the fire department, paramedics, all that.

Q. What did you see, Manny?

A. Oh … I don’t even know how to describe it. Ms. Rankin’s leg was … was separated from her body. I don’t know how else to put it. I could see the heel of her shoe was stuck in the little groove that the elevator doors slide back and forth in. There was blood everywhere, and just, well, there were pieces of Ms. Rankin on the doors of the elevator and on the bricks of the elevator shaft going down. The car had gone up almost one floor, and it was stuck there. I could see Mr. Felter and the woman, Ms. Paige, through a little crack though. About six inches.

Q. So the elevator was stopped there?

A. Well, it was still trying to go up. I think Ms. Rankin’s body was stuck in the shaft and was keeping it from going. I really didn’t know what to do. This is not the kind of thing we are trained for, you know? I was trying to talk to Mr. Felter. I could see he was trying to calm Ms. Paige down. And then, pretty soon, everyone arrived, the fire department and everyone. It was just, chaotic after that.

MS. MESSING: Thank you, Manny.

Elise

Even now, let me tell you, not a day goes by that I don’t think abut it. I’m serious. Something like that, it changes you forever. I’ll be in line at the grocery store, and suddenly I’m back there, and its happening all over again. One moment this glamorous woman is storming across the lobby, yelling for us to hold the elevator, and the next … oh God. Do you know it ripped her apart!? Right in front of our eyes. I can see her face now. Shock, then panic, then … nothing. She was gone, just like that. Someone’s wife. Someone’s mother.

“Susan Rankin. Beloved wife of Jeffrey, loving mother of Liam and Connor.” She was a lawyer, I guess. She worked in that building. All of that was in the obituary. But it took them a while to post it. I checked every day. There was an autopsy, naturally, a big investigation.

When they finally let me go home that day, when the paramedics and the police were done—do you know they even made me talk to a shrink?—I came home to my empty apartment and just cried. But at some point, I’m not sure exactly when, I realized that the bag they’d pressed into my hands as I was leaving was not mine. It was hers.

I knew I needed to return it, to get it to her family. I left messages with the police, but I guess recovering dead people’s misplaced belongings is not a high priority for them. So finally, I looked in the bag. I thought probably her wallet would be in there, with an I.D. It was. But there was something else. Just a sheet of paper, folded in half, with the words “I’m sorry” on the front. I remember the handwriting was very neat. Ha, I don’t know why I remember that.

It was a suicide note, dated the same day as the accident. There was hardly anything to it. Don’t blame yourself, this was my fault—really vague stuff. But, you know, I think she really meant to kill herself. There were bottles of prescription pills in the bag too. And on her tablet—yeah, I looked at that eventually too—her e-mails made it sound like she was in some serious trouble. A client had done something illegal and she’d covered for it. I’m not a lawyer, I didn’t really understand all of it, but I could tell she wasn’t just being paranoid. She was going to be disbarred I think, where they tell you you can’t be a lawyer anymore? Maybe arrested too.

Really, I had just one thought. I could not give this to her family. But then I had doubts. I drove by the address on her driver’s license a half a dozen times, having convinced myself that her husband, at the very least, deserved to know. But I chickened out every time. That bag haunted me. I moved it from closet to closet. I couldn’t sleep.

Some time passed, and I read in the paper that the lawsuit, against the elevator company, I guess, had gone to trial. There was a statement on the news, from the husband. He was indignant, was devoting his life to making buildings safer or something. I sort of stopped hearing his words. I was fixated on his face, all that righteous anger. That was how he was coping. I studied his grainy photo in the paper for days, begging him to give me a clue. But in the end, I knew, I just needed to get rid of that bag.

I drove out of town, farther than necessary, I’m sure, and tossed it in a dumpster. I cried all the way home. You have no idea. I was just so glad to be rid of it.

[Day 1: 2097 words]