Update: I somehow wrote and published this post without actually setting any goals for this month… so I fixed that. See my goals at the end.
August was tough for reasons other than anything writing- or family-related. I took last week off from writing a real post because I just did not have the mental energy. I’m not yet convinced September is going to go much better, but I’m excited to share some news in this post. Continue reading “September Write Day: Marching Onward”
Last week, I introduced Ursula Le Guin’s exercise for chapter 7, which is her chapter on point of view. This week, she has us using the same story from last week (if possible) to explore less common POVs. I found I was able to use my story from last week and keep it going – so we are back in the campground with a freshly dead Mountain Lion.
To review Le Guin’s exercise instructions:
“Exercise 7: Points of View
Think up a situation for a narrative sketch of 200-350 words. It can be anything you like but should involve several people doing something. (Several means more than two. More than three will be useful.) It doesn’t have to be a big, important event, though it can be; but something should happen, even if only a cart tangle at the supermarket…
Please use little or no dialogue in these POV exercises. While the characters talk, their voices cover the POV, and so you’re not exploring that voice, which is the point of the exercise.
Part 1: Two Voices
POV was Third Person Limited, two versions, two different characters. (If you’d like to see what that looked like for my teeny tiny story, go here.)
Part 2: Detached Narrator
Tell the same story using the detached author or “fly on the wall” POV.
Part 3: Observer-Narrator
If there wasn’t a character in the original version who was there but was not a participant, only an onlooker, add such a character now. Tell the same story in that character’s voice, in first or third person.”
Steering the Craft, Pages 71-73
Here by some odd twist,
remaining for a moment
at another’s whim.
I normally prefer my existentialism with a dose of humanism, or perhaps some wide-eyed cosmic awe, but I’ve been in a rather negative frame of mind the last couple weeks. Hence, the above.
I’m also not really at liberty to explain why I’ve been in a negative frame of mind, but I’ve been stressed and frustrated, and it’s been difficult to compartmentalize that part of my day from the things I care more about, like my family.
Also, I’m still trying to finish “Uprooted”, but the closer I get to the ending, the more I think I need to spend a little more time in the final place my characters end up. I need to find a way to close this story off without feeling like it’s abrupt, and still leaving room for part 2.
Steve D
Ursula Le Guin talks about how points of view in fiction come and go in popularity, with first person and limited third person all the rage for the last 100 years or so. I had never thought of point of view as a “fad” (even if a relatively long lived fad), but I guess that all depends on your point of view!
Her goal with chapter and exercise 7 is to define and get you to experiment with different kinds of point of view, especially ones you are not comfortable with. The exercise starts out with the one of the POVs currently in style, limited third person, and then expands to other less common POVs.
For this one, I’m telling a tale that was told to me at a work happy hour. It was related as a true story, but you know how happy hour stories go…
Continue reading “Exercise 7: POV – The Mountain Lion Killing”
Leaving breadcrumbs as you write a story is fun.
That stranger in the tavern who eyes your character just a little too long. The oddly repetitive appearance of a particular animal that just has to be symbolic. Or the mysterious item that seems to catch anyone’s interest who lays eyes on it.
Experienced readers often notice these little details and wonder if they are clues into what might come later in the plot. Continue reading “When the Plot Breadcrumbs Lead Nowhere”
This is the second part of Exercise 6 from Ursula Le Guin’s Steering the Craft book. To recap: Chapter 6 was about verbs, specifically dealing with person and tense. This serves as a prelude to chapter 7, which is a long (and intimidating!) chapter on point of view. My take on this exercise has an old woman wandering around the remains of her house after a fire and remembering a different disaster that struck when she was a child.
The prompt: “Exercise Six: The Old Woman
This should run to a page or so; keep it short and not too ambitious, because you are going to write the same story twice.
The subject is this: An old woman is busy doing something – washing the dishes, or gardening, or editing a PhD dissertation in mathematics, whatever you like – as she thinks about an event that happened in her youth.
You’re going to intercut between the two times. “Now ” is where she is and what’s she’s doing; “then” is her memory of something that happened when she was young. Your narration will move back and forth between “now” and “then.”
You will make at least two of these moves or time jumps.
Back at it with Exercise 6 from Ursula Le Guin’s Steering the Craft book. Chapter 6 was about verbs, specifically dealing with person and tense. This serves as a prelude to chapter 7, which is a long chapter on point of view. I have to admit I procrastinated on this exercise – and I did so for a reason that surprised me! First, though, the prompt:
“Exercise Six: The Old Woman
This should run to a page or so; keep it short and not too ambitious, because you are going to write the same story twice.
The subject is this: An old woman is busy doing something – washing the dishes, or gardening, or editing a PhD dissertation in mathematics, whatever you like – as she thinks about an event that happened in her youth.
You’re going to intercut between the two times. “Now ” is where she is and what’s she’s doing; “then” is her memory of something that happened when she was young. Your narration will move back and forth between “now” and “then.”
You will make at least two of these moves or time jumps.
July strangely felt like a long month, but I still can’t believe it’s August. Summer is almost over! And I haven’t been to the beach! I’m hoping to have an extended beach weekend in October, when there would be fewer crowds and (ideally) still some warm weather. But we’ll see.
I procrastinated soooo much in July. Maybe I cursed myself by declaring the Return of the Summer Doldrums. I also feel like I haven’t had a free weekend in months. We’ve been going pretty hard at home improvement things for like eight straight Saturdays.
Still, I did halfway decently with my goals.
That sound you just heard was July whooshing by and now it is August. I confess I did nothing towards my writing goals (with the exception of posting here regularly) until the last week of July. I co-procrastinated (if that’s not a word, it should be) those alongside a work writing project that had a hard submission deadline at the end of July. But! I got everything in on time (well, more or less).
1. Keep posting here on Mondays and on my other blog, Illustrated Poetry, on Tuesdays.
Did this! At least one post per week on each blog. Didn’t adhere to the precise day of the week so much on my other blog, but eh.
2. Rewrite the first chapter of Enjoinjure.
This I put off until the absolute last minute. I do mean opening the file on July 30 and working on it on July 31. I’m fudging a little because I didn’t really attempt to smooth out and combine the new bits with the old bits until this weekend, which is technically August.
3. Put together an outline for my current untitled story.
I did do this!
I kept the bar low on these writing goals, I know. But overall it worked – I finally addressed that first chapter, which I had been actively avoiding.
Why write on writing
when the story itself glares,
demands attention.
Steve D
This is my lame excuse for not having a meatier post this week. I really just want to finish my short story. Hopefully, I’ll not waste this opportunity and have good news on that front next week.
Evening Satellite Publishing 