Instructor Response

Hi Ramona—

Give this another try. Actually, it’s not in third person. You effectively present emotional reactions to the injustice in almost an essay format. The writer is telling her thoughts and feelings about a terrible tragedy. It’s great if that’s the goal. But on this next try, make it a story. See if you can let the reader discover their feelings about the scene. To do that, you need to create a story. Something needs to happen. Here is how a third-person story might start and sound:

 

Jack and Hilda went down to Mayor Burnham’s yard with the big live oak tree to see what the commotion was about. Hilda could hear it from their bedroom, shouts and yelps, cries and moans. “Look,” she said to Jack as they got close, and saw two blacks twisting on ropes tied to the limb of the oak. “They’ve done it.” 

“’Bout time,” Jack said. “Them uppity niggers.”

“I’m not sure they did anything.”

“Course they did. Sheriff got ’em to confess.”

She stopped at the edge of the crowd but Jack pulled her hand to move her to the front for a closer look. He was chuckling.

 

                This is an important concept to grasp. See how a story is being created. See how the attitudes of characters are revealed in the dialogue. See how snippets of the scene are introduced to give the reader something to visualize re: the scene and the characters.

                Look to other stories. Identify first-person stories and third-person stories. Maybe look carefully at “The Amish Girl.” It’s a story being told in third person, in this case the character of Peter, and the reader sees the Amish girl through his perspective. The reader also discovers Peter’s thoughts and feelings on occasions. The reader is not told by the narrator or author, but discovers Peter’s thoughts and feeling in his point of view. And the story moves on. Also read about POV. You can start here.

 

1. Read

http://www.storyinliteraryfiction.com/essays-on-writing/narration-literary-stories/http://www.storyinliteraryfiction.com/essays-on-writing/1st-person-pov-in-literary-story/        

 

2. You might refer to this excellent resource:

Points of View: An anthology of Short Stories

James Moffett and Kenneth R. McElheny (Eds)

ISBN 0451628721
Multiple editions available. Excellent resource of stories by famous authors presented as a study of point of view. Worthy of purchase—any edition.

3. And you might search for multiple ideas on site in “The Fiction Well.” Use the search term “point of view.”

 

Assignment work.

No one should have suffered the way the black twins did, the day they surrendered themselves to the injustice of the world, allowing the so called other mankind to torture their souls for eternity. Without a sense of kindness the men of anger gathered in groups of hate, to hang the ropes of death around the slaves dirty necks, when they pulled them down so hard, and up the tree they were silently suspended. You are, as the author, speaking directly to the reader. You use narrative description and tell the emotions and the outrage and the injustice. It’s important to see that you don’t use a character point of view. Also try to make up a story with a beginning, middle, and end to entice and inform the reader (see above). In this piece, something doesn’t happen. The scene is used to deliver (important) conclusions through telling. It will take some time, but pause, read, and learn about point of view and how to use it in storytelling.

 

Together the siblings of earth marched the active crowd, holding hands in support of the ugly crime they all attended to watch in pleasure. With smiley faces drawn across their wicked selves and proud shoulders, they stood around criticizing the twin creatures, as they dangled down the branches without a breathing pulse. In the heat of the moment no one seemed to care of the reasons behind their act, pretending as if no felony was implicated when in fact each one of them was involved and to a certain extent. 

Perhaps the uncontrollable hatred of the white nation had taken a turn to the worst when they decided to end the lives of the innocents, and just because they were the people of color, yet they had no rights to commit such hideous actions.

 

Meanwhile, the shallow apathy of the related couple that stood on the left side of the scene, was a simple example of the recklessness of those from around them, whose presence have highlighted and in bold colors their selfish minds and loss of compassion. Although the real blame had fallen in the arms of the ignorant society they all dwelled within, modern rather serious preaching was much needed to turn the table of humanity around in order for all the people to live peacefully together, not to please ones greedy wish, but to overcome the not so necessary inequity that separated all the people of the earth, and possibly forever. 

Best,

Ramona