An Exercise in Point of View
In this exercise you are using an incident from your life as a jumping off point or doorway into the creative unconscious. You will have an opportunity to use two points of view, first your own and then another character’s.
Take an incident from your life in which you are absolutely certain that you are the injured party. The easiest way to do this is to use an argument or a fight, which automatically holds dramatic tension. Even though you are starting from the known, the key is not to be slavish to the known. Don’t try and copy “what happened.” Be loose, use dialogue and let the characters take on a life beyond your “memory.”
1. See the argument or fight in your mind’s eye as a scene from a movie.
2. Write the scene keeping to your point of view (POV). Use inner thought, dialogue and action. Inner thought is what define’s point of view. The other character speaks and acts, but all the inner thought belongs to you.
3. Put that scene aside and write another scene, this time using the other person’s point of view. Remember that writing from the other person’s POV means you disregard your POV. It is the other person’s inner thoughts and feelings that count.
Before you begin, it is important to be clear on point of view, which means getting inside the main character’s head, heart and gut, literally seeing the world through the character’s eyes. So when you are in the “bad guy’s” POV, be as true to that POV as you are to your own. An excellent example of this is Crime and Punishment where Dostoevsky has Raskolnikov, who is not a criminal, put an ax into his landlady’s head. Thus begins one of the greatest novel ever written. Did Dostoevsky have to put an ax into anyone’s head to write this? Clearly not. And neither do you. But Dostoevsky needed to experience Raskolnikov’s physical and psychological journey as a murderer as well as his emotional journey from darkness to redemption.
Writing from the imagination, “making up things” doesn’t mean that you’re childish, or worse, crazy. Know that in the cosmic realm of the imagination, you will find the truths passions, characters and stories for which your creativity hungers.
I will be exploring point of view in detail during the October 24 TeleSeminar, The Five Ingredients of the Scene.
Explore the TeleSeminar
Take an incident from your life in which you are absolutely certain that you are the injured party. The easiest way to do this is to use an argument or a fight, which automatically holds dramatic tension. Even though you are starting from the known, the key is not to be slavish to the known. Don’t try and copy “what happened.” Be loose, use dialogue and let the characters take on a life beyond your “memory.”
1. See the argument or fight in your mind’s eye as a scene from a movie.
2. Write the scene keeping to your point of view (POV). Use inner thought, dialogue and action. Inner thought is what define’s point of view. The other character speaks and acts, but all the inner thought belongs to you.
3. Put that scene aside and write another scene, this time using the other person’s point of view. Remember that writing from the other person’s POV means you disregard your POV. It is the other person’s inner thoughts and feelings that count.
Before you begin, it is important to be clear on point of view, which means getting inside the main character’s head, heart and gut, literally seeing the world through the character’s eyes. So when you are in the “bad guy’s” POV, be as true to that POV as you are to your own. An excellent example of this is Crime and Punishment where Dostoevsky has Raskolnikov, who is not a criminal, put an ax into his landlady’s head. Thus begins one of the greatest novel ever written. Did Dostoevsky have to put an ax into anyone’s head to write this? Clearly not. And neither do you. But Dostoevsky needed to experience Raskolnikov’s physical and psychological journey as a murderer as well as his emotional journey from darkness to redemption.
Writing from the imagination, “making up things” doesn’t mean that you’re childish, or worse, crazy. Know that in the cosmic realm of the imagination, you will find the truths passions, characters and stories for which your creativity hungers.
I will be exploring point of view in detail during the October 24 TeleSeminar, The Five Ingredients of the Scene.
Explore the TeleSeminar
posted by Emily Hanlon at
9/23/2006 08:58:00 PM
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