POV (Prisoners of View)

The point of view (POV) in a story is an important element of writing according to those who claim to know something about writing.

A story could be told in first person. According to some writers, the story in first-person is the easiest to write because it is the one that we have most experience with in our everyday conversations. This says something about our self-centered nature if, in fact, most conversational statements begin with "I".

The story could also be told in third-person; the omnipotent, omniscient narrator tells as little or as much as the reader/listener is supposed to know at any one time. This is what many people think they are doing in everyday conversations while they are overusing the pronoun "I".

The limited omniscient POV tells the story as understood by one of the characters. This is what the "I" users are actually doing. The stream of consciousness POV not only tells the reader about what the character is consciously aware but also about the character's unconscious processes. I've decided not to comment on this one, but will instead invoke the Fifth Amendment. The objective POV follows the action and the dialogue, leaving the readers/listeners to interpret for themselves motives and internal conflict. Isn't that what journalists used to do before Fox News?

Moreover, the story might change from one point of view to another as long as the reader/listener understands whose head or heads that he or she is in. Now, isn't that simple? The best way to keep the reader informed in this more complex style of POV, of course, is stay in the same POV for the entire scene or chapter or conversation.

In other words, it's all about perception. As characters on the world stage, perception is reality and vice versa.

I'm glad I was able to take time out of my busy day as I am, in fact, able to clear this up for you because this is the way I see it ... so should you.

Common Sense Tells Us

This might be an appropriate time to look back at another time when it appeared that the rights and aspirations of black men were in conflict with the rights and aspirations of both white and black women.

In 1866, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony formed the American Equal Rights Association. The organization was dedicated to universal suffrage, voting rights for white and black women and black men.

The Fourteenth Amendment was ratified in 1868 extending protection to all citizens against unjust state laws. Furthermore, the Amendment defined "citizens" and "voters" as "male."

In 1870, the Fifteenth Amendment enfranchised black men. The National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA, led by Elizatbeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony) refused to to work for the ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment, insisting that it be scrapped for a Sixteenth Amendment which would have provided universal suffrage (to include black and white women as well as black men).

However, Frederick Douglas, who had previously seemingly supported voting rights for not just black men, but also black and white women, broke away from Stanton and Anthony over the NWSA's position of universal suffrage, in order to secure ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment, voting rights for black men only.

In 1872, both Susan B. Anthony and Sojourner Truth showed at up at polls to vote (in New York and Michigan, respectively), but were turned away. Anthony was, in fact, arrested and brought to trial for attempting to vote.

Several women attempted to use the Fourteenth Amendment in the courts to secure the right to vote, but they were unsuccessful. The Women's Christian Temperance Union became an important force for women's suffrage, but would see no immediate results of their efforts. (The liquor lobby feared if women had the right to vote, they would prohibit the sale of liquor.)

In 1878, a Woman Suffrage Amendment was introduced in the United States Congress. The wording remained unchanged but it wasn't until 1919 that the Nineteenth Amendment finally passed both houses and was ratified on August 26, 1920 ... This was fifty years after Frederick Douglas broke away from the women's suffrage movement in favor of securing the vote for black men, leaving black and white women still without the rights of citizens.

I admit that my nerves are rankled by a history past and the one forthcoming. Can't we all just get along? ... at least long enough for common sense to prevail? Common sense and a sense of fairness seem to have once again been overshadowed by self-centered arrogance.

Is it Barack Obama's assumption that he is entitled to be the presidential nominee at this time? ... rather than a woman with more years of experience working for all Americans and working for us since Obama was in high school in Hawaii? ("Barry" in the multiethnic classroom and "Barry O'Bomber" on the basketball court.)

Is it also an assumption that women will someday have their first woman president ... perhaps fifty years after this election? Oh, golly, I can hardly wait!

The Blogs of Others

As I was considering what I wanted to write, I looked at the blogs that a couple of other folks have imposed on the cyber-psyche and I have to admit that it was a little scary.

One of the blogs that caught my eye was a gallery of doodled-on post-it-notes. That was kind of cool but then I realized that post-it-notes are most readily available to a person while they are at work or sitting in a classroom. So, this blog was an admission that when they were supposed to be doing something productive, they were doodling on post-it notes. It was probably during this "work-time" that he/she decided it would be cool to post them on a blog.

Further into the blog, I saw that other people were also contributing their doodled-on post-it-notes most likely doodled and posted during their "work-time". Is there a growing epidemic of doodling? Have we become so bored with, first, computer solitaire and ,then, video games that we are now reverting back to a simpler, more basic vehicle for avoiding work ... doodling? Will we next take up carving wood chips to avoid work? Or will we just browse the blogs of the doodlers?

That reminds me. I need to shop for a pocketknife so I'm ready for the next cool trend.

Post-Super Tuesday Notes

I confess to being a recovered Republican. I was in a mixed-race family: one Democrat and one Republican. That made every race interesting. But that was back in the days when Republicans were compassionate and not just in word but also in deed. It was actually possible to be a fiscal conservative and a social moderate. My Republican step-father cried when Martin Luther King, Jr. was assasinated and it broke my step-father's heart to see the rioters burn themselves out of their own homes. He was my example of a kind, but cautious Republican.

However, the first Bush and the first Gulf War rehabilitated me. Somewhere, I had been told that Democrats start wars and Republicans end them; I am a pacifist through and through and I believed that lie. Now, I know better and I have been a Democrat ever since.

When Obama first announced his intention to run for president, I was excited for my own state's senator. I was happy with his anti-war rhetoric. The rhetoric continued but without much substance. He said he was the voice of change but the rhetoric hadn't changed. It was still more style than substance. So, I got over being angry at Hillary for appearing to support Bush the Sprout.

I also remembered my roots. I didn't mention that I managed to balance my Republican-leaning with my strong feminist principles. It didn't make sense to me that women could become automonous individuals while still depending on Big Brother in Washington to take care of them. (I'm now older and realize that we all need some help; sometimes we needs lots of help.)

So, yesterday, even though I knew that most other Democrats in my state would be voting for Obama, I proudly went to the polls and voted for Hillary. Once I was alone in my car, I started to cry. I thought about being in high school in the 1960's when the length of a girl's dress was deemed acceptable or not by the male coaches. After lunch, we all went to the gym. If the length of a girl's dress was suspect, the male coach would have the girl get on her knees on the gym floor. If the dress didn't touch the floor, he made the decision to send her home to change to a longer length. That might sound trivial but I haven't forgotten how demeaning it was just to watch that happen to another girl.

It was also during that era that a man could beat his wife without interference from the police as long as it happened behind the doors of the man's "castle". If an employer asked for sexual favors from a female employee, she had better agree to it if her income was needed at home, which it almost always was.

I am proud, so I cry. Hell, I am thrillled to have voted for Hillary. I understand why she gets the votes of women over 45 years old while Obama gets the votes of the younger women.

We remember. So does Hillary. The girls in the class of '68 thank you, Hillary!

Hitchcock's McGuffin

According to a story in Harper's Magazine by Art Spiegelman, Alfred Hitchcock called a plot device, which has nothing to do with the story yet to be told, a McGuffin. The purpose of a McGuffin is just to ignite the telling of the story.

I tried to think of an example of this (I thought about it for about 20 seconds) and I couldn't come up with one. Rather than expend any more brain energy, quite naturally, I Googled an image of Alfred Hitchcock. One of the pictures was of Hitchcock standing next to a suggestion box holding a large, sturdy noose. He has one hand above the knotted noose and the other on the loop of the noose.

Now I see that this picture of Hitchcock could itself be a McGuffin and that a McGuffin is also much like a writing prompt. (I referred to a writing prompt in a previous blog.) It could be used in various genres. For example,

Romance: She noticed the strength of his sinewy hands holding the noose in a way she never had when he was cleaning her septic system. The kindness in Reuben's eyes let her know that he was there to save her from the evil dental hygienist who had only been after the inheritance from her dead husband. She stepped into his arms and the noose draped around their bodies creating a bond that would hold them until death do they part. It was then that she learned that her little brother had joined a circus and her parents, on their deathbeds, pleaded with her to find the boy and bring him back to visit their graves.

Spy thriller: Little did Ingor Spitowski know that Filmore had known her about the key that she carried in her shoe that opened the door leading to the President's vault at the end of the tunnel. Filmore had tempted her to the roof with promises of hemp by-products. But he had to keep her alive, wriggling in the noose, until she told him where she had hidden her left shoe, a pump previously worn by Barbara Walters on the View. Once Barbara's shoe was recovered, the interview with Putin began with questions about his chest hair exposed during his recent vacation at the beach.

Horror: too obvious

Anyway, I like the idea of using images as prompts. I also like using Google as a substitute for original thinking. Who doesn't?

Writing Prompts

Some writers, or so the magazines for writers tell us, use writing prompts in order to loosen up the nuts, grease the wheels, and jumpstart the creative engine that is responsible for selecting a few words from a lifetime accumulation of blah blah blah and put it on white paper. The writing prompt might be "Write a story about a priest, a rabbi, and a minister that walked into a strip club." So once it is written, what happens to the story ? It could be filed away until there is a demand for religious erotica. It could be folded into a thong-shaped cross. (Actually, isn't a thong already in the shape of a cross?) Most likely, it is tossed into a wastebasket, but how inspirational is that to begin each morning trashing one's hard work?

On the other hand, there is a spiritual truth involved. The response to the writing prompt is an idea that has been cast into the ooze of the universe thereby creating a ripple in the ooze. The movement of molecules in the ooze's ripple creates heat, in other words, energy which loosens nuts, greases wheels, and jumpstarts the creative engine. Ideas are manifested as keystrokes and keystrokes cast out ideas creating more ripples of ooze. The universe is forever and irrevocably changed by a few words about a priest, a rabbi, and a minister in a strip club.

Maybe it's not such a bad idea after all. So, there was this priest....

A Friendly Report

I want to talk about a friend. We both work at a...hmmm...school.



Depending on what I say about her, my comments might be construed as gossip, gross exaggerations, backbiting, belittling, praising, or promoting. Some might say I am just sharing news or reporting. Others might say I am deflecting attention from those many risque rumors about myself (I wish!) or that since I'm so hopelessly boring (aw, smack!), I can only say what is going on in the lives of others. If the previous statement is a good indication (which it is), whatever it is that I have to say about my friend, I'm going to reference it to myself.



What I most enjoy about this friend is that she is not me. In many ways, we are very different and I like that about her. First, her world is larger than mine; she makes it so by reaching beyond the immediate locale and the present moment in what she says, does and how she thinks (if I can presume to get into her head.) She is more well-read than I am; this doesn't refer to an ingestion of classics, but to the fact that she reads what she likes and when she likes.



Second, she can pull off being a perfectly sane and stable rebel; this state of mind seems oxymoronic or, at least, unusual. But she pulls it off, sliding through wispy and yet sure-footed in her own way daring others to trifle with her while dodging everything that would rattle a less stable person. Like my friend, I do rebel, but usually I am slapped down for my efforts. Of course, then I get back up just to see if the same thing happens a second time...or fourth, sixth, or whatever.


Third, she is a real blogger. I am a blogger-wannabe; as with many things, I am a wannabe. I wouldn't have blogged this much if not for her encouragement. I wouldn't have known how to get started. So it's thanks to JSK that I blog (for better or worse.) You should check out her blog, in fact. Go to http://sceamingyawndog.blogspot.com/ to read what a worldly, sane rebel has to say. Tell her I sent you.