New Avenues - Shirley S. Tye

One website stated that stories written in the first person are the most reader friendly yet I’m not drawn to such stories. And I don’t care to write with that point of view. Mind you, I have read several novels which were written in the first person. They were interesting stories with intriguing plots and strong characters.

That site also said that a first person point of view is an intimate way to write. Ah! That explains why I’m not particularly interested. If I were to write with that point of view, I wouldn’t mind getting intimate with my own characters. After all, they’re not real. It’s readers who I don’t want snuggling up to me - as if they’d know me through some fictitious being. And besides they’re strangers. I’d be squirming in my skin. Readers might identify me and the character as being one entity. My character would probably develop as someone stiff and unnatural as I’d guard and restrict the character’s speech, action, and thinking. I’d rather hid behind a third person and let him or her romp freely through the story. Yeah. Call me a coward.

The writer of the site also mentioned that when writing in the first person one must be careful not to over use the word “I”. That’s not always an easy task. I know because I have written several humorous short stories. Okay! You caught me! I have used the first person point of view. But only in short stories to get a laugh.

Perhaps one of these days I’ll try writing a novel in that fashion. But not now. I’m still working on a romance novel – something else I said I didn’t care to do but here I am. Another new avenue – keeps life interesting.

Utopia? by Carol Ferguson

 

 

 

We are pleased to have Carol Ferguson, author and InScribe member, join us as our Guest Blogger today.

I was challenged recently to write in a new genre. Here’s my attempt at Sci Fi set in the year 2065.

STEPPING UP to the security check at the airport, Jan placed her chin on the Eye-dentity scanner bar, then lifted two-year-old, Livvy, until her chin rested on the bar for the two-second scan. The iris had proved to be the most basic source of identity and unalterable. They had not even been allowed to leave the hospital after Livvy’s birth until a tiny DNA chip was imbedded between her wee eyebrows. It was the equivalent of the old fashioned birth certificate. Every person on earth had one and it eliminated all need for tangible identification. Jan was pleased with the advances in society. She didn’t have to carry an old fashioned purse like her great grandma did.

Jan remembered hearing horror stories about the number 666; Satan’s number, being tattooed on people’s foreheads and Jews with identity numbers tattooed on their arms. Those stories died off after that generation died and now no parent questioned the chip. If your child went missing a satellite would pick up their exact location in seconds.

When Eye-dentity scanned Jan’s eyes it also scanned her ID chip and gave her an update. Great grandma had laughed too about a cashless society when coins in Canada were phased out and paper currency replaced with polymer bills. Now all finances were only recorded on a person’s chip, Livvy’s too. After the World Monetary Fund took control, finances worldwide, had slowly been equally distributed and no one could access another’s finances. With everyone on an equal economic basis, crime had been virtually wiped out. Great Grandma would be amazed.

Free universal health care became available when the World Health Organization took total charge and quickly eliminated all infectious diseases and eliminated huge pharmaceutical companies that once used health to create personal wealth.

The Bible was used to finally get a handle on world overpopulation and, at the time, it seemed so logical. God promised man three score years and ten, so now, on a person’s seventieth birthday, they celebrate their life and are put to ‘sleep’ and no one grieved about the process. It was now an accepted concept.

No one on earth went hungry since The World Food Bank took control the world's food supply. Everyone on earth works the same amount of time, has the same amount of vacation and everything needed for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is free, shared worldwide.

Pollution and energy problems disappeared with the total switch to solar and wind power. Stored solar power is used to start a vehicle and once it is moving a small wind turbine under the hood recharges the battery.

Jan breathed a satisfied sigh. She finally understands Utopia. Only once in a great while does she recall hearing a voice from the past asking, “When He returns will He find faith on the earth?” Who is returning and from where?

A New Technique - Linda Aleta Tame

I'm a third-year university student in a Creative Arts program.  Last term I completed a course called, the Multi-genre, Multimedia, Disjunctive Poetic Narrative Dream Text.

My professor, Di Brandt, an accomplished Canadian poet, stated that the genre that includes so much variety has been around for awhile, but has never had a permanent title.  It has been referenced as the Long Poem or Experimental Writing and probably many other non-specific identifiers, but none that took hold as the official title.  In an effort to include all that the genre entails, and to inform students, Professor Brandt created the Multi-genre, Multimedia, Disjunctive Poetic Narrative Dream Text title and course.

We studied several texts, reading through them all at the same time.  This provided the small group of inspired students with a multi-genre-multimedia-disjunctive-poetic-narrative-dream text reading experience.  (Okay, I'll spare you further repetition of the lengthy title, but in class we had a lot of fun with it!)

All the texts were by Canadian authors:

• Blue Marrow by Louise Bernice Halfe
• I Knew Two Metis Women by Gregory Scofield
• Seed Catalogue by Robert Kroetsch
• Questions i asked my mother by Di Brandt and four others

All of these are noteworthy and inspiring, but my favourite one, and one that has most influenced my approach to writing is NOX by Anne Carson.  I haven't space to describe its many unique and unconventional characteristics, but if you'd like to investigate it further, Google and Youtube have many articles about it.

One liberating factor is that the pages of NOX are not just filled with printed text.  They include photocopies of poetry, prose, word definitions, single-line-on-a-page statements, images, bits and scraps of letters and envelopes, smudges and even some long-hand writing.  Carson's technique inspires endless possibilities, and this freedom seems to alleviate writer's block for me.  I may not use all the ideas, maybe not even more than one, but knowing I can seems to open the creative gate.

I think it was the author's random-but-ordered style that intrigued me most.  Here's what I learned:  You don't have to start at the beginning.  I can't express how this opened the way for me to explore other options in my own writing process.  Start anywhere, organize and compile later.  What a refreshing discovery! If I have a thought, I don't have to write it down to save for a later chapter or paragraph.  I can write it now, expand on it in the moment when the inspiration is fresh and powerful.  It'll all come together when it's time.

I'm grateful for the Multi-genre, Multimedia . . . I think you know where I'm going with this.  It broadened my vision to get a head start on a writing project I've wanted to do for a long time.  Why not give this genre a try?

NOX by Anne Carson