point of view

Prompt: Success from a Dog’s Point of View

The prompt this week was to write from an alternative perspective. The quote to get us started was:

The man is a success who has lived well, laughed often, and loved much; who has gained the respect of intelligent men and the love of children; who has filled his niche and accomplished his task; who leaves the world better than he found it, whether by an improved poppy, a perfect poem, or a rescued soul; who never lacked appreciation of earth’s beauty or failed to express it; who looked for the best in others and gave the best he had.

Robert Louis Stevenson

The prompt is to use the above to write from the perspective of a dog.

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Prompt: Witness Perspectives

The prompt this week explores the subject of memory, eg, how differently my siblings remember incidents that we all witnessed in our family. Or how difficult it is to collate the different perceptions of witness to a crime or an accident.

How can we fully believe anyone’s story when we know what has colored his or her perception in the first place?

Will our own story ever be told? By whom? To what use?

Why telling the truth to the best of our ability is important, even knowing it is not The Truth.

NaNoWriMo Tips: Reverse Things

Your character is afraid of their own shadow. They creep through life trying to never disturb the dust of living, yet life still happens to them.

Write a scene like that with your character.

Then, throw the whole scene into reverse.

Write the same scene with your a brave, fearless personality at play, loving life, embracing anything thrown their way.

Which is the true definition of the character you want in your story? Is it one of these extremes or a compromise between the two.

Use this technique to not only learn more about your character, especially to identify strengths and weakness, but also to mix things up. Sometimes a brave and tough character has moments of fear, when they feel helpless and out of control. What would it take to make them feel that way? Might be an interesting part of your story.

You can find more writing tips, NaNoWriMo prompts, and writing tips for NaNoWriMo on our Writers in the Grove site.

NaNoWriMo Tips: Point of View

NaNoWriMo isn’t about writing just one thing. It is also a time for experimentation, which can also spice up the chore of your 1,667 words a day. Try experimenting with point of view.

Write a scene told from the perspective of the main character, written in third person.

Write the scene as told from the perspective of an omnipotent narrator.

Write the scene as told from the perspective of one of the other characters.

Write the scene as told from the perspective of one of the animals nearby, a bird, cat, dog, snake.

Write the scene in first person.

Which works better? Should you change your story’s point of view? Or keep it? Either way, it mixes things up for a writing session, and helps you see your story from another perspective.

You can find more writing tips, NaNoWriMo prompts, and writing tips for NaNoWriMo on our Writers in the Grove site.

Prompt: From Two Points-of-View

The prompt was based upon a fictional perspective between the thoughts of a dog and a cat, telling the same story from two points of view. Other suggestions were with a doctor and patient, husband and wife, police and prisoner, and mother and child.

The children’s book, I Am the Dog, I Am the Cat by Donald Hall is a good example of a story told by alternating points of view. A famous alternating point of view is Gary Larson’s famous Farside comic strip featuring what the human says and what the dog hears.

Gary Larson comic strip: What the human says and what the dog hears.

The prompt is to tell a story from two opposite points of view.