The First Five Pages: Viewpoint and Narration

January 29th, 2008–The First Five Pages: Viewpoint and Narration
This chapter, for whatever reason seems to have stalled me out. I don’t think it was this chapter, specifically, rather just events unfolding and taking a cumulative effect.

You know you’ve stalled when you find more amusement in watching the garbage truck trying to dive through huge drifts of snow than think about your writing. Or, you know, going and meeting your husband’s cousin who happens to be on the ‘disowned’ side of the family.

Anyway, I did go out and study other viewpoints for narration like Lukeman suggests. This in fact, is part of what has distracted me for at least five days. And you know what I discovered? I discovered that the authors that are my (Chick Lit) heroes write in <gasp> first person, present tense! Eeeek! Call the writing police! They are making bestsellers and breaking a forbid rule. (Then again, the rule says you have to be a really good writer to get away with it, which evidently they are.)

But can I? Well, time will only tell, of course. But it has bolstered me enough to not go and change all my manuscripts away from first person present tense. (That and the kind words of other writers on this site.)

So, I will ignore the plows and garbage trucks and the fact that it was really fun popping our little car through big snow drifts so my hubby could get to work, and get down to work myself.

After I have some more tea. And maybe check my email.

Later…Okay, I did the exercise where you change the narration in your story. I changed a scene from first person to third, just to see what it was like. It was interesting. I may use it someday. Although, it felt like I was giving too much to the reader. I could be so definitive–that was a refreshing and interesting change. Yet, there was no real room for interpretation as I could just jump into each character and explain them. Less work for the reader. Less work for the writer. Although, I suppose once you are talented at third person, you can leave little hints and clues for the read instead of hitting them over the head.

On a totally separate vein…I saw the CBC show last night, ‘The Week The Women Left Town’. Cool premise. It appealed to the sociologist in me.

Web Page

I really need to learn how to use Dreamweaver. This Front Page site is looking dated.

Instead, maybe I will go and clean the house.

Last Week’s Lesson

When to break the rules?

Will I ever know when breaking the rules serves my work for the better?

It is intimidating being a newbie writer and discovering that there are all these big rules about writing. Some of them are good, solid rules that should be the backbone of your writing, but others can come and go.

I am also discovering that different genres have their own rules and subsets of the rules.

So, this week’s lesson, I suppose, is not to take myself and my writing so freaking seriously and bend the rules when I feel that it serves my work for the best.

Writing Exercise

I typed out the first few pages of a favourite read and I learned a lot about how the author used a ‘throw away’ character to lay her backstory, introduce us to the main character as well as to set her scene. By the end of the first five pages, the reader actually had a pretty good feel for the character, without even realising it. (Which is particularly tricky, seeing as it is a sequel and you don’t want to bore or insult continuing readers.) As well, she lays down short, abrupt sentences that don’t trip the grammar meter in Word. Tricky.

It was cool to job shadow a pro. If you could call it that.

Now how to apply this to my own writing…

Suburban Mom? Me?

Now that I have a large tub of margarine and the equivalent of my mother’s body weight in kitty litter, our household is back on track. (And in case you are curious, I came in $16 under yesterday’s Costco guesstimate.)

Somehow I became a suburban mom. My rise was slow, like that of a winter sunrise in the Canadian North. How I got here, I am not even really sure. Nobody who knows me truly believes that I am a suburban mom. They don’t buy it. If they read my blog, they would realize that I am secretly leading a double life. (But they don’t even know that I have my own URL.) Maybe it is because I don’t drive a mini-van. Or have highlights. Maybe that is why they don’t believe that I am a Suburban mom. Or maybe, because this town is too small to have suburbs. Maybe.

I didn’t even really realize that I was a suburban mom until last night. I was lying there thinking about how busy today was going to be. First I had to take my daughter to <gulp> her French class (she is four) and then home for lunch after picking up cat food at the vets and more milk at the grocery store. After lunch, off to playschool to play lifeguard at their beach party. Parent helper, French class…oh yeah, those were signs alright.

(Although, I do have to mention that the French classes are because my daughter is obsessed with French. I will often find her watching ‘Lunar Jim’ en francais in the mornings on one of the 5 1/2 channels we get. So, French class has not stemmed from my need for her to be cultured or to give her an edge in playschool, is it simply a free class that she is super-duper excited about. There, I feel better now.)

On an unrelated note, my daughter has managed to whittle away at my husband’s ownership of his cat. He has had the cat in question since she was a small kitten–ten years ago. They had an official handing over ceremony last weekend while I was still sleeping. I’m okay with it.

Okay, well, except for the part where the cat now goes into my daughter’s room every night (yes, literally every night since the handing over ceremony) and meows at my daughter until she wakes up. This is a totally new habit. I suppose the cat is saying, “Hey, do you know what you are in for? Do you know how demanding having your own cat can be? Do you know how much love I need? And god dammit, I don’t want to belong to a kid younger than I am. Your allowance will not cover my needs. Besides it just isn’t fair. I am a PRINCESS. You may have the crown, shoes and dresses little girl, but I am the original.”

And then my daughter picks up her cat and tosses her out of her room. Then I wake up and tell them to knock it off. The complaints are voiced in the morning. Seriously, it is like I have two children now instead of one.