Writing Exercise: POV, Style, & Letter

Point of View

Original paragraph:

Once she unpacked, she told herself, it would be different. Somehow, people everywhere managed to turn black, barren apartments into homes. The main room was scattered already with Rubbermaid tubs and taped boxes, the remnants of her room with Chelsea back at college all packed away again. She'd thought it was so much stuff while carting it out of the rented U-Haul back in September, but now she had no idea how she'd manage to fill all this space. Even if she spread her belongings as sparsely as possible, they could hardly begin to dull the edges of even this small, engulfing space. God, she didn't even have sheets for the bed!

Rewritten paragraph:

Once I had unpacked, I told myself, it would be different. After all, people everywhere somehow managed to turn dark, barren apartments into homes. It happened every day. Right. And I had a head start; already the main room was scattered with Rubbermaid tubs and taped boxes, the remnants of my room with Chelsea back at college, all packed away (neatly, too) once again. But although I'd thought it was such a huge amount of stuff while I carted it out of that rented U-Haul back in September, I had no idea how I'd manage to get it to fill all that space. Even if I spread it out as sparsely as possible, it could hardly have started to dull the edges of that small, gigantic space. Oh, God. I didn't even have sheets for the bed.

I'd actually thought a great deal about what point of view to use with this story, and I'm fairly comfortable with the one I finally chose. The main debate was between first person past and third person past. I was always sure I wanted the majority of the story to be narrated from Shin'nen's perspective, and for a while I was convinced first person was the only way I could do it right. I finally decided, though, that I wanted a little space from her, so I still had the option of giving the other characters a say. Looking at this now, too, seeing the story directly from her perspective seems a little crowding, as though I don't really want her to be telling me so much—sort of “back off, honey, I get it already!” I'm a bit afraid Shin'nen would become a little over-the-top without some sort of buffer between her and the audience.

Style
Original Paragraph

The room still smelled sharply of latex paint and the chemical tang of new carpet. She'd tried to air it out, but the scent lingered. There was no way to escape the way the apartment looked. It was so empty, like her dorm room back at Puget had been, except here there weren't even stains on the carpet or old tape painted into the walls. It was as though no one had ever lived there, at all, and she was supposed to somehow fill it with life and make it someplace warm and safe.

Rewritten Paragraph

The apartment had its own impersonal aroma, the scents of latex paint and new carpet blending to create an almost institutional atmosphere. Shin'nen had tried to air out the rooms, throwing the windows wide and letting in the river air. She'd felt guilty doing so, in loosing such a smell on such a beautiful city, but still the scent lingered. There was certainly no escaping the way the apartment looked, either: empty and lifeless, beyond abandoned or brand new, it seemed as though it had been shunning life, a husk of a dead home beneath a fresh coat of paint. It was worse than her dorm room had seemed at Puget last fall; here, nothing marred the frozen perfection of the walls and floor, and Shin'nen couldn't imagine anything she could do that might transform it into a home.

This was actually rather hard for me to do. It's odd, but I feel like I've combined what are usually several styles for me into one in my opening paragraphs. Here, I tried being a little more distant and descriptive, stepping farther back from Shin'nen and her own opinions of the apartment. It seems very cluttered to me, though, and overwritten. It also loses the personal aspect and sets up the story as being very aloof. Part of what I like about writing Shin'nen is that I feel very close to her, personally, and I feel safe letting my third-person narrator make assumptions about her feelings. (Yes, I know, I created the character, so I aught to know what her feelings are, but I do believe there is quite a difference between creating a character and actually knowing one.)

The Christmas Letter

Shin'nen tapped her fingers on her keyboard, staring at the blinking cursor on the monitor screen. She chewed on her lip. It was just a Christmas letter, after all—you weren't supposed to write anything important, so it wasn't as though it mattered what she wrote. But wow, how were you supposed to sum up the past year in a nice fluffy package? So far, she had managed three words, and they stood grinning at her on the screen:

“Happy Holidays, everyone!”

Okay. This was simple. Just type something and go. Yep. She wiggled her fingers over the keyboard.

Hope you're all having a great winter! It doesn't snow much here, which has been pretty disappointing. I can't wait to visit Minnesota again and see a real winter!

Oh, great, she mentally complained. Two exclamation points in three sentences. How cheesy is that?

I've moved to Portland, for those of you who haven't heard. It's a gorgeous city, and I have a nice little apartment in Old Town by the river. It's right above where I work, which is super convenient—I don't have to drive anywhere for work, and it saves a ton of money on lunch breaks.

That's it, girl. Just gloss over the fact that you had to drop out of college for this cozy little place. No one's gonna notice that one.

I'm doing a sort of internship with this company, E.I.D.O.L.O.N., and it's been a great experience so far. You might have heard of them—I've been told there's offices all over the world, and they do a lot of charity and investigative work. That's where I've been working—the investigative end. So far we've tracked down a few missing people. We even get to help out the police on occasion! I'm still debating going back to school in the fall, but I really feel like I'm doing a lot of good here.

“Very nice,” she said with a snort, glancing over the last paragraph. “If that doesn't sound like complete crap, I'm a fig newton.” And what was she supposed to do—tell them she'd been off saving people from crazed werewolves and helping new mages keep from burning down their houses? Right. She rolled her eyes, figuring another paragraph should finish it off—and if it didn't, she might have to strangle herself with cotton candy.

It was a weird transition from college to work here, but I'm getting settled in pretty well now. It's exciting having my own apartment, and work has been a continual learning experience. My coworker Asque has been interesting to get to know. He knows everything about the job, and he's a bit of a recluse, but I'm fully confident I'll get him to open up this year. Other than that, things have been going pretty smoothly

Yeah, right, she thought. Smooth like black ice.

and I'm very excited about 2007. Oh, and hi from my kitty!
Love and hugs,
Shin'nen

"Okay, Aunt Kimmy," Shin'nen said to the air, "I wrote a Christmas letter. Happy now? And guess what, I'm only mailing it to yoooooou . . ." She made a very undignified face at the computer screen, then printed off the document. "Take that, holiday tradition insanity."