Point of View in Fiction Writing

Are you continually writing from points of view of people who are very recognizable to you or with whom you feel very much at home?
If so, it's time to change! Rattle things up a bit in your creative landscape.
Here are some thoughts which may or may not seem outrageous to you:

Write from the point of view of:

a thief
a woman giving birth
a man who is dying
a medieval crusader
a teenager who is being pressured to take drugs
a teenager who is being pressured to have sex before he or she is ready
a wise old dog
a woman condemned to burn at the stake as a witch
a child in the midst of war who finds herself lost without parents.
a interrogator of the enemy during war time
a man or woman who has visions but isn't crazy

these just came to my mind.
Do you have any ideas?
Click "comment" below and share your new and never before considered characters!

On Emotion and Sentimentality in Writing

I came upon this in my reading recently. It is by the author, Anne Bernays:

"Too many writers avoid their own strongest feelings because they are afraid of them, or because they are afraid of being sentimental. Yet these are the very things that will make beginning work ring true and affect us. Your sotries have to matter to you the writer before they can matter to the reader; your story has to affect you before it can affect us. William Kittredge says, 'If you are not risking sentimentality, you are not close to your inner self.'"

Here's an exercise you might want to do:
Think about what strong feeling you think you would never write about.
Name the feeling, the emotion.
Then begin to write why you are afraid of that emotion.
Then close your eyes and think of an incident in your life where that emotion
seemed to betray you?
Write the memory but in a particular way. First, give the person in your memory/story
a name other than yours. Then tell yourself that you are not telling this story -- your new
character is. Let the character be the opposite sex from you, if you want. Then ask your character to write the memory, but remember -- this is no longer only your memory. It belongs to your character. Let the memory shapeshift however your new character wants it to shapeshift.

Write fiction!

What Does Your Inner Critic Sound Like?

Let’s look at ways the Inner Critic blocks and confounds your writing. He may insist you produce an outline before you begin to write. Or he may insist you write only from your own life because, "How can you write about what you don’t know?" Orhe might have you spending hours trying to find the right word, or shifting around sentences until you find yourself in a quagmire of grammar, thesaurus page-turning and general frustration.

You know the Inner Critic is at work when you look at the clock and discover you’ve spent an hour on a single paragraph, worse a single sentence, and the computer screen is mostly blank or the page is so scribbled on and crossed out and torn from erasing, you can’t read it anyway. That’s the moment when you throw up your hands or crumble your page into a ball or press the delete button thinking, "Who am I to think I can write? I can’t even find the right word. I’d do better going to Adult Ed and taking a grammar course. God, I’m stupid!"

The good news is that’s not all of you talking; but it is a loud part of you. After being with you most of your life, you’d better believe your Inner Critic knows how to push all your buttons.

Learning to identify your Inner Critic and his or her negative put downs is the first step to taking away its power. Remember, too, that the Inner Critic isn't always yelling and screaming. Sometimes its voice is very subtle, which makes it all the more insidious.

If you've never thought about how your Inner Critic undermines your writing and creativity, think about it and then make a list of the negative thoughts you have about your writing. They're not coming from your Inner Writer, that much I can promise you!

A TeleSeminar

Alternative, Holistic Psychology TeleSeminars
Learn Healthy Ways to Tame Your Inner Critic & Find Your Unique Voice

The Center for the New Psychology, Director, Dr. Doris Jeanette, licensed psychologist has helped people tame their inner critic for thirty years. As Jean Houston, Ph.D., noted, "Doris Jeanette has dared to live at her edges, fall off the map of her known world, and come back with the means to tame monsters."

On the phone, in the comfort of your home, you can learn how to use your creative mind, open your heart and write your truths -- in spite of the "Inner Critic."

"How to Use Your Creative Mind for Fun, Profit and Health." February 10, 7:00, PM. Doris Jeanette will interview Jennie Catherine, author of Conversing With the Future, Visions of 2020. Jenna gets paid to "read" stocks for a fund manager, you can learn how she does it and apply it to your own needs and desires, such as your writing!! Learn how to use your mind to manifest your desires instead of fears. Jenna will teach you how to put your awareness in the most amazing places.

Learn to:
Tell the Future Movements of Stocks or Any Other Energy!!
Tell the Difference Between Your Beliefs and Outside Data
Use You Mind to Observe the Health of Your Body and Your Energy Field
Find and Listen to Your Higher Self
Use the Power of Your Future Self to Improve Self Esteem and Gain Self Confidence
Do Quick Exercises that Give You Helpful Information that Might Even Save Your Life.

Sign up for Jenna's teleseminar at www.drjeanette.com/teleseminars.htmlMarch 24th, 7:00 PM Eastern, Dr. Doris Jeanette will teach you how to, " Eliminate the Two Ugly Sisters, Guilt and Judgment from Your Life so You Can Be Cinderella!"

For more about this workshops visit. www.drjeanette.com/teleseminars.html.
Dr. Doris Jeanettewww.drjeanette.com215-732-6197503 S. 21 St. Phil. PA 19146

Sex and Love Columnist, Author of audio material, A Natural Process for Opening the Heart, which shows people how to achieve emotional health, highly praised by the late Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, MD. Additional CD's: "Healthy Ways to Reduce Anxiety" and "Healthy Ways to Reduce Depression."