This article is about the Writers’ Village Short Story Award 
, and if it is worth paying £15 to enter “the world’s largest short story contest that gives feedback to every entrant.”
The short answer is no, it isn’t. But I’m going to share with you the feedback I received, explain what I think are the problems with it, and you can make up your own mind. (more…)
In part one of this series, which you can read here, I talked about the choice between First and Third Person Point of View (PoV), where First Person tends towards intimacy while Third Person can offer greater clarity. But it is far from a simple dichotomy. Choices regarding PoV and perspective are part of a nexus of alternative ways to embody the reader[i] in the text.
An easy way to demonstrate how PoV puts the reader inside the text is via the much maligned Second Person Perspective. In Second Person PoV you are the protagonist – “you said, you picked up the knife, you walked out of the room.” The following example is from a book that just about every geek of my age has read: (more…)
Ever since the massacre at Charlie Hebdo I’ve been finding it harder to write. Instead of working on all the projects I’m supposed to be working on, I’ve scribbled page after page of notes trying to sort out what I’m feeling. It’s not an easy thing about which to write. I’m not even sure I should. But Paris is my home. And I can’t stop thinking about what happened here.
How do we write when you can be killed in the centre of Paris for drawing rude cartoons? (more…)
Point of View or Narrative Perspective is a central stylistic choice that is superficially simple but contains hidden difficulties and subtleties. In the two parts of this article I will explore the three main types of narrative mode (first (I said), second (you said) and third (he said) person perspective), how to use perspective to manage the balance between intimacy and clarity, and how small shifts in point of view can be used to position the reader. This won’t be a comprehensive overview, but I will be exploring some of the things I find interesting about the choice of narrative perspective.
First person perspective or Point of View (PoV) is written as if told by one or more of the central characters, either using “I” (first-person singular) or “we” (first person plural); “I said, I picked up the knife, we walked out of the door.” Third person PoV is written from outside of the character; “he said, she picked up the knife, they walked out the door.” But what difference does it make choosing one approach over the other? (more…)
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Early on in the drawing class this morning the teacher brought out some pictures the group had been working with the day before. They were medical diagrams of intestines. I didn’t want to look at them. I didn’t feel good. I had a bad taste in my mouth.
In the break, when everyone else grabbed coffee and biscuits and talked about what they’d been doing, I sat down and did the drawing on the right. It was big and it was fast. I didn’t like looking at it.
The picture didn’t look right. It wasn’t how I remembered it happening. For a start, the only thing that had screamed had been the cable right before it broke. Second, when I think about it, I wasn’t even looking when he fell. I remember him being all crumpled up in the stupid yellow coveralls they gave us, the angles being wrong but the blood all dark and mixed up in the other wet and mess. (more…)
