A Writing Magic Trick

I’m in the throes of an 8-week writing class, with the talented writer, Rebecca Flowers. The assignments are amazing, thought provoking and a bit challenging — which is exactly what I was hoping for. I did however, underestimate my available time. We’ve been playing around with points of view — who’s telling the story — a third person (he) that knows what everyone else is thinking?  Or the first person who knows everything about one character and everything we read is filtered through that bias?  Or second person, where you are in the middle of the action.Playing with these POVs, even if you discard them, are like magic tricks — giving you inside information you didn’t have before.

Rebecca asked us, of course, to write the same story in several different points of view. What I found startling was how easy it was to “discover things I didn’t realize I knew.”  When I wrote for someone else, I was suddenly able to read his mind, and to discover insights I didn’t know he had. It gets tricky though, actually, interesting, when you collect the character’s thoughts together. As your gather this inside information, you need to remember that the people in your story do not have all of this information. They can only act on what they know; the information, you as the writer, give them.

Even if you go back to first person, and delete the third person’s point of view, your first-person story will be richer, and kinder, and more sympathetic to all the characters.

I was thinking about how this really could be a great relationship tool to help us understand our kids, spouses and friends. Instead of them telling us their point of view, you can write it out to yourself; the answers are right there. It hits a bit closer to your heart this way too.

For playing around, I took the real-life story of when the class bunny died in our living room. I played with differing points of view.  I wrote my son’s thoughts, and found myself not writing about his sadness at loosing the bunny, but rather his joy at finally having the bunny at home, where he would not have to share her with his classmates. I discovered how important this little weekend visit was to helping him to simply form a bond.

You can read the original here, but here’s the tutored-by-Rebecca Flowers, flushed out version I came up with. It’s important to know that in this portion of the story, the bunny is still alive; and he doesn’t yet find out that Brownie is gone until the next morning.

The pictures, still unframed, were sitting on the table along with their dismantled frames, freshly cleaned, thanks to Windex and few spare minutes. The reddish color of the parquet wood floor made it difficult to see the scattering of cedar shavings that outlined the four by four metal cage that held the bunny, the weekend house guest. Brownie’s water and food bowl still looked untouched, even though the kids had changed the water and refilled the food at least 18 times in the course of the last 24 hours. Susie almost turned off the lights and went to bed herself, and then forced herself to finish framing the pictures. She worked silently, beside the bunny, tucked in for the night, in her cage. The silence was broken with the sound of feet on the stairs.

“What are you doing up?”
“I’m sad that I have to take Brownie back to school on Monday,” he says.
“Well, I’m sure your class will miss her if we don’t get her back, don’t you think?” she says as she rubs his back. “Especially Mrs. G.”
“Can we take her home again the weekend of Halloween?” he asks, as he reaches down to unlatch the cage and pat the bunny on the back.
“Sure… how many more weekends is that?” she says.
“It’s 21 days… not counting tomorrow,” he says.
“OK, then, in 21 days, Brownie comes back. That’s not too long of a wait… plus, you get to spend everyday with Brownie while you’re at school too.”
He closes the cage and smiles and says, “Next time, can we keep the cage in my room? Because, everyone here bothers her too much.”
“Sure… now get to bed.”

He turns and walks upstairs, as Susie snaps the third picture back into the frame. Two left to go. Brownie stands up in her cage, and starts walking around in a circle, igniting a memory in Susie of the way their old dog used to walk around his basket, just before he would plop down and take his naps. In a matter of seconds, the metal bars of the cage begin to shake and rattle as Brownie’s walk turns into frenzied somersault as she hurls herself against the top of the cage, then back and forth across the sides of the cage. The cage shakes across the wood floor, making a terrible racket. Susie just watches; stunned. This is the kind of activity the kids had been hoping to get out of Brownie all weekend; instead, she had simply curled up in her spot in the corner and stayed quiet. The water bowl spills, soaking the newspaper and cedar shavings lining the bottom of the cage. After a few seconds, Brownie stops, and lays down in her spot – now wet. Susie watches, just as Brownie jumps up again and whirls herself against the top of the cage one more time, and then stops. Brownie is now motionless, like she is sleeping. But she is not.

Upstairs, under the covers, he squeezes his stuffed bear and thinks about how much nicer it is to have Brownie at home. At school, he must wait his turn to pet Brownie. Sometimes, Chole brings her carrot to Brownie first, and then she’s too full to eat his carrot. Next time, in 21 days, Brownie will be sleeping in this room, and he’ll feed her all the carrots she wants.  He closes his eyes, smiling.

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