She sat silently in the corner of the room, sipping at a mug of hot tea. A notebook lay open in front of her, hasty words scribbled down and across the page in a seemingly random order. Although her hazel eyes seem to be unfocused as they glance across the room, she watched in detail the people she shared the Java Shop with. It wasn't the sort of place she would normally populate, but with her recent transfer of colleges she had to deal with the shortcomings of her new home. She missed the Tea Shop back home, it had more character than this small imitation cafe. 1
Pushing a strand of curly auburn hair behind her ear she returned her eyes once more to the page before her. It had been too long since she had actually sat down and wrote because she wanted to. Most often she just couldn't find the time... there was always something else to do. But since she had promised Jeff that she would meet him in town, she thought she might as well take advantage of the time she had.2
Jeff was her boyfriend. He was the reason she was still sane enough to have the sense of mind to write at all. Before him she had barely spoken with anyone, let alone went to public areas just for a day of people watching. In a way he both made her and broke her when it came to writing. Though her writing had declined in quantity since meeting him, the quality of of her work had changed drastically. The seven hour conversations they had about nothing and everything often found a way into her writing now – allowing her an outlet for real life in a more abstract way. Abstraction was her specialty, after all.3
She smiled slightly to herself, dragging her pencil lazily against the page before her. With the 'others' how could she be anything but an abstraction? It was a disorder she had learned to live with, though she was loath to call it a problem like so many told her it was. Sure, her mind was fractured into pieces – and her memory left much to be desired with it's week long holes and hourly blackouts... But having multiple personalities wasn't something she considered an issue. At first it had caused problems, but the fact remained that she still was who she was. Integration was possible, but taking the time to do something right was something she had always been obsessed with. Cutting down the 'others' from a count of nearly fifty to only nine had taken years. Now she was willing to sit back and take a break – let things develop as they pleased.4
She glanced up from the table as the door opened, smiling as the familiar form walked into the dimmed light. She stood from her position in the corner, flipped her notebook closed and tucked the pencil into the pages to keep her spot. Dropping her writing into a bag beside the table she turned to find Jeff standing a foot or two away. Smiling he looked down at her, and she couldn't help but smile back. It was nice to see him again after a week of school and no breaks.5
“Ready to go?”6
“Always.”7
Placing the bag over her shoulder she threw her coat over her arm and walked to meet him as he turned back towards the entrance. She imagined that Jeff didn't like the atmosphere of the Java Shop either – it was quite a bit less interesting than their normal hang outs. As she passed Jeff he placed his arm over her shoulder, walking beside her and opening the door as they reached the front of the shop. There was a full foot of difference between their heights, which made her five feet a perfect arm rest for him.8
She knew they were being watched as they walked out of the place. Jeff was constantly wearing a black leather trench coat – and for effect she had pulled out her off-white cashmere coat for contrast. So, creating the perfect yin-yang, they exited the shop and onto the street. The sun was just setting as they reached the car, creating a rainbow of colors across the sky as they reached city limits. The radio was turned on softly, mostly for background sound rather than the actual songs they heard.9
“Where to?”10
She looked over at Jeff as he checked his review mirror. Tilting her head ever so slightly she smiled.11
“You're in a driving mood, aren't you?”12
He just smiled and pressed down on the gas in order to jump up to speed. Laughing she shook her head.13
“How much gas do you have?”14
“Just filled the tank.”15
There was a moment of silence and she looked out of her window. The moon sat darkly on the passenger side of the car, staring back at her. Quietly she reminded him of the necessity of getting back by the next day for her classes. He shrugged it off and continued driving.16
“Always the sensible one...”17
“You tell me that's my job.”18
Laughing he promised he'd have her home before the sun rose again. Again there was silence as she decided whether or not to challenge that flimsy statement... truthfully she wouldn't mind if he broke the promise. He turned to smile at her.19
“Don't you trust me.”20
“Not even remotely.”21
“So, where to?”22
Laughing lightly at him, at the situation and herself she leaned over in order to lay her head on his shoulder.23
“Just drive.”24
Author notes
*Introduction of myself (third person)
A contest entry
- THE EDITOR’S CORNER POINT OF VIEW/INTRODUCTION CONTEST by TheLittleOne-Paul.
700 points, ended October 25, 2006, 5 entries
Honorable mention
• next story in this contest, remove from contest
Comments
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hey great job! like ur other pieces of work that i have read so far, i love this just as much as the others. so i cant wait to read more of ur work, good luck and keep writing.
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THANK YOU FOR ENTERING THE POV/INTRODUCTION CONTEST
Before I comment on your submission, let’s take a few moments to talk about the purpose behind the contest and what we had hoped to learn by it. Perhaps the best way to instill real feelings in a character is to stand in his or her shoes and write from the character's point of view. Unfortunately, this method also holds the greatest danger of undermining the meaning of a story.
As an example, suppose we have two characters, Joe and Tom, who are business competitors. Joe hates Tom and Tom hates Joe. We sit down to write an argument scene between them in the first person POV. First, we stand in Joe's shoes and speak vehemently of Tom's transgressions. Then, we stand in Tom's shoes and pontificate on Joe's aggressions. By adopting the first person character point of view, we have constructed an exchange of honest and powerful emotions. We have also undermined the meaning of our story because Joe and Tom have come across as being virtually the same.
A story might have a Protagonist and an Antagonist, but between Joe and Tom, who is who? Each sees himself as the Protagonist and the other as the Antagonist. If we simply write the argument from the first person point of view, the audience has no idea which is REALLY which.
The opposite problem occurs if you stand back from your characters and assign roles as Protagonist and Antagonist in the third person without considering the characters' points of view. In such a case, the character clearly establish the story's meaning, but they seem to be "walking through" the story, hitting the marks, and never really expressing themselves as actual human beings.
The solution, of course, is to explore both approaches. You need to know what role each character is to play in the story's overall meaning - the big picture. But, you also must stand in their shoes and write with passion to make them human. Standing in the characters' shoes is up to you when you actually get down to writing. You do this through your choice of the voice of your POV character and the tense you chose to write this character voice in.
Though it's easy to fall into the habit of always writing in the first person, it's important to also be able to write in the third person as well. Both first person and third person have their strengths and weaknesses. What works for one story may not work for another.
This contest was designed to help you observe the effect of writing in the third person point of view, to add this tool to your toolbox. Even if writing in the third person point of view does not improve your overall writing, remain open to it in future work. Use the lessons learned in this contest to evaluate the point of view in all the characters in the stories you write.
A good general rule of thumb for choosing which POV you should use is…
Use the first person when it is necessary for observing others (not the protagonist) in a voice that simultaneously creates a character (usually the protagonist);
Then use the third person when it is necessary for observing the protagonist in a voice that is not the character’s but the story’s.
Now let me make a few comment on your use of this writing component in your contest submission.
> You have managed to meet all of the criteria set down for using the POV writing component in the third person very well. It would seem that though you may have been a little awkward at times, you remained in the third person and stood your course. This is a very good attempt at using the POV in the third person. Good Job.
> Part of what makes this approach to character development work, is how you use the descriptive element in support of it. You can't allow the use of this approach to hamstring the development of strong deep character descriptions. As an example. Instead of saying..(She was 6'2'' tall. as most entrants did) ....you might say..(She just brushed her head on the top of the door jam upon leaving the room.) To get and keep yourself in the third person in your contest submission you shortchanged the creative character development of the character (yourself) within your story (your introduction). This is one of the traps that have to avoid in employing the third person POV component.
All in all, this was a very good submission and I thank you for taking the extra time and effort that was necessary on your part to enter this contest and to continue to learn and develop your writing skills.
THANK YOU....
Paul
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I want to thank you, first of all, for such a useful comment. It was refreshing to get some constructive response on something I know is far from being satisfactory in my eyes.
I decided on thrid person limited because the contest was about an introduction of myself, not of my boyfriend. It seemed to fit better if I focused only on what she thought rather than the reactions between them. There was no antagonist or protagonist in this story - it was simply the introduction of a character, not the plot of a novel.
Working on a contest base always seems to stress my use of the POV simply because it's necessary that I follow a rule. Deadlines have always been good for me, but margins by which to write by have given me trouble in the past... I'm just glad that I was able to remain in third person in this case.
I do try my best to 'show not tell' what a character looks like. My only slip up in this particular story was her height. I could state instead the difference between them and something to indicate relative height to the rest of the world, but it seemed a little to round-about to do that. Most of the time it seems it just confuses people when I try to explain something without saying it. Otherwise I did try to fit her hair color/type and eye color into the story without stating it. In my personal veiw, this has always been one of the best parts of writing - finding ways to hide the discription within the story while making it obvious enough that when asked a reader can describe the character. I really didn't have enough time in this one to drive the image home, though - that usually takes a lot more character development than I'm willing to open myself to in this case.
Thank you again for the chance to write in your contest, and for the wonderful comment.
~DarkSun
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