Day Eight – Storytelling Is Great

What story will you tell? How are you going to tell it?

• What style? Short sharp sentences? Long flowery paragraphs?
• Who will tell the story?

These are two important questions to answer and the impact on each other of your choice matters.

Point of View (POV) is very important because it is linked closely to ‘voice’ which determines style, and is usually individual and recognisable. (This is why we often get attached to particular writers, not just because of the subject matter of their novels but how they write.)

Point of View

Is the perspective from which a story is told and generally these are the most common ones used in creative writing:

• Third Person Omniscient – the narrator knows all the thoughts, motives and feelings of each character
• Third Person Limited – the narrator stands outside the action and focuses on one character’s thoughts, feelings and observations.
• First Person – the main character tells his/her own story and refers to himself as I, or another character tells the story from their point of view – a voyeur watching/interpreting the protagonist’s life
• Second Person – the story is told by a narrator talking to the reader, using the key words You or your. (This is a difficult one to sustain in a long piece of writing and can become irritating for the reader too.
• Third Person – the story is told by the narrator using the key words He/She/They
• Objective – the Narrator does not tell the thoughts or feelings of anyone, so only action and words are reported

Some writers favour one particular point of view, others change their style depending on the story and genre.  Some writers will experiment, perhaps flitting between more than one narrator.

If you choose the first-person often it is a personal narrative. (Memoir/Life Story/Autobiographical) but it can also be used in a short story fictional story.

• Will you make it moody with lots of description? Chatty and informal? Dark and/or Gothic?

• One hazard of writing in the first person is that your readers tend to think that I-the-narrator is actually I-the-author – so be clear if you are writing fiction.

Whatever your point of view, when choosing the tone, pick whatever POV you feel you can sustain and remain easy and consistent.

• Don’t take on a  tone that is unnatural for you.
• Watch you don’t change tone or direction – perhaps taking too long to write the story, and in the long gaps between sessions, your mood and motivation have changed.
• also, be wary of editing to perfection, or for brevity and destroying the flow of your story:)

A consistent tone is preferred for each short story and usually, it works better if told in one voice.

POV is a writer’s closest connection to the readers.

• It creates meaning beyond that offered by the simple combination of character and plot; it adds subtext and secrets and suspense.
• It is a writing element every bit as important as pacing or setting and, for that matter, is an essential part of developing plot and character.
• It filters the experience of the plot events through the personalities and perceptions of the characters. Who is narrating the event (that is, the POV character) determines in great part how the reader experiences it.

Therefore, it is considered best practice to stick with just one point of view telling your story. (But there are always exceptions… once you are a confident writer.)

In a short story, that means the hero or heroine, the main character, the protagonist – whatever you want to call them is telling the story.

• Too many points of view and the reader may be confused. Let them see the world of the story through the eyes and feelings of one character.

If you are writing in First Person, be careful not to read the thoughts of others in your story! 

The modern way is to tell the story from a single point of view. Head-hopping is discouraged.

Always remember, if writing from ‘I’, the first person, you cannot witness events you are not directly involved in, just like you cannot know what another character is thinking. If you want to be all-knowing then choose third-person omniscient!

Experiment and see what is right for your story and what POV you will use.

As always, once you know what you are doing you can experiment and break the accepted rules but expert writers usually advise not to experiment with POV – think about the confusion you can visit upon the reader!

However, an example of originality is a novel I loved, but I know many didn’t: The Time Traveller’s Wife, (2003) the first novel by  Audrey Niffenegger. (Please note, I loved the book, not the movie!)

Written in the first person, the novel is divided between the viewpoint of the two main characters Henry and Clare. The reader has an insight into the detailed emotions, feelings, thoughts and experiences of each main character.

Here is an example of a short story I wrote in 2004, influenced I admit by reading The Time Traveller’s Wife, (I got the courage to move away from the straight first person and my usual third person).  I tell a story from the viewpoint of three characters.

Impasse a short story, by Mairi Neil

My story was published in Directions, an anthology by Bayside NightWriters  and written in one of my classes from a prompt:

• Tell a story from different viewpoints of at least two characters, include a mobile phone, a truck driver and a traffic accident.

Writing Exercises For You:

1. Take the prompt I had and write a story with two or three characters involved in an accident (could be traffic/air/boat)
2. Kay frowned as she opened her locker. A few feet away Alexis and Christine grinned. I stood unsure of what to do.
3. He grabbed the waitress by the arm and said, ‘ I’m senior detective Frank Jones and…
4. Twinkling eyes can mean many things but the one twinkling at me right now is…
5. I woke up to a strange noise and looked around the room. Where was I and how did I get here?

Ask questions to get a start on a story:

• Who are all these people,
• where are they,
• what was in, or had been removed from the locker.
• Why is the police officer grabbing the waitresses arm?
• Are the twinkling eyes human? Is this set indoors or outdoors?
• Are you the cold observer, or are you involved in some way? How?

Write from the first-person or third-person point of view and perhaps experiment with the others – whatever you feel the most comfortable with to make the ideas and words flow.

Stories Are Influenced By Current Events & Inventions

I can imagine we are going to be hearing about COVID19 for a long, long time! Writers are important to historians – we chronicle the time we live in, we exercise our reflective powers, our insight, our perspective, we discern the mood and we add our imagination and flair.

In 2004, mobile phones were just starting to proliferate although some business people had been using them for years. They were expensive, many thought them intrusive and unnecessary, and rumours they caused cancer abounded.

They were the latest invention/technology to be included in a lot of writing prompts with many pieces produced – usually not seeing them as a plus for society!

How things change!

Today, in this crisis of social isolation, we are grateful for having mobile phones – especially Smartphones!

Last night and tonight,  it was wonderful to hear laughter resonating throughout the house as my daughters caught up with friends using Facebook Messenger and Skype!

Each day of the Coronavirus Crisis I have been able to ring or message friends, family and ex-students to check they are okay.

Not so long ago this was a common sentiment:

My parents did not even have a telephone or a TV set until the early 60s and thank God no mobile phones or computers, which take up an extraordinary amount of time these days.

When I wrote this poem in 1998 I was an observer and by the tone, you can see I held a different viewpoint from today because of my lived experience. In writing, context is everything.

Social Mobility a la 1998
Mairi Neil

They’re at the beach on a hot day,
in the queue at the Post Office,
interrupting a teller at the bank,
in the supermarket aisles and the checkouts,
sitting outside at a sidewalk cafe
at Southbank,
sitting inside in the Food Court
at Southland,
on trains, buses, trams,
on bicycles,
in cars, trucks, taxis,
walking the streets,
waiting at bus stops,
on train platforms,
at school gates,
in department stores,
in shopping malls,
in museums and art galleries,
at the zoo,
at meetings,
on picket lines,
at demonstrations,
outside courtrooms,
in lifts, on stairwells,
in public toilets,
in the school ground,
at school concerts,
at school assembly,
in church, at the theatre,
at the cinema, in hairdressers,
in classrooms at community houses,
and even at a funeral…
anywhere… anytime…
mobile phone
… anyone?

Today I might add Ubers and perhaps I would use a different tone, content, and context. perhaps I’d emphasise different experiences. That’s what is so wonderful about being a creative writer and continually being observant. Detail matters too.

Visual Prompts For POV

1. What could these two lorikeets be talking about? Who took the picture? Why and from where? Is there danger lurking?

1. Who lives in this broken-down house? Why? What are the neighbours like? What conflicts could arise? What would happen if a developer bought it?

It is a time of rapid change and anxiety – don’t be too hard on yourself – perhaps just aim for one great sentence or even a great idea for a story or poem you will get to ‘one day’.

Happy Writing