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Fictional Narrative Basics - Point of View
Unit Completion Date: End of Week 5
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Painter and Bernays employ a host of vocabulary in the introduction: third person subjective, third person objective, omniscient, John Gardner's notion of "psychic distance." It may seem a little daunting to start working with or making sense of so many ideas. Like so many of the other topics we cover in this discussion unit, this wealth of terminology will be of the most help after you've completed your first draft. During the writing of the draft, however, all of this advice is as likely to distract as to help.
Controlling point of view in the first draft depends on a clear understanding of who is telling the story, and--if the narrator is a character in the story as well--whether they are reporting the story as it occurs or from some other vantage point.
To get a taste of some of the complexities inherent in point of view, and to get your writer's mind thinking about the topic, turn to page 91 of What If?, and complete Exercise 33, "An Early Childhood Memory, Part One: The Child as Narrator" as well as the exercise that follows, "An Early Childhood Memory, Part Two: The Reminiscent Narrator." These will not be posted to the course site, but should be placed in the "Point of View" section of your craftbook.
Point of View Exercise 1 (Opt.) - Submit Response
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