Thoughts on this -
I have done something similar before in Waters and the Wild but, in that, the person in first person didn’t come into third person at any point and it was very formally done in terms of the structure.
I want The New Thing to be like a fable, a really pared down story (so pared down I deleted from 36000 to 8500 words 2 nights ago. Hey ho) and I came across a little 300 wonder I did lately and knew that was the vibe I wanted. This is it, changed to meet the story:
It’s okay to feel like you do, they told me. The communitysurrounded me with enquiries as to how I was coping. Theirhelpful hands brought dinners to ensure I was fed. They called to see I was alive, not off killing myself with grief. They called in the mornings to see I got up.
They told me not to keep taking myself off into the glen. It’s no good for you, they said, being alone so much. But the glen was in my heart and in my roots. It was the only place I could find peace.
Along the winding path that led from my house into the green wood glen. To the waterfall, thundering from the pools above.
I visited in the early morning, and in the evening when no one was near. Just me, on the still path, and the air winding around me, filling my nose, my throat, infecting my breathing so that it became thick and unnatural. Either that, or it was grief that filled me too full.
I walked there, because we once had. I sought you in the trees, in the pools, hoping to see you both coming to me, side by side, hand in hand, together or apart, in any way you could. Once, I was sure I did see you, on the other side of the water, silent, watching. I almost walked through the depths to you.
But the gentle shake of your head, dear Jean, made me stop, mid-step. You were right, this wasn’t the time: I needed to keep going until the trial, when I’d see Colin Thompson locked up for what he did. Locked where he couldn’t take the life of another.
Step by aching step, my eyes never leaving you, I backed away, to where the air was sweeter. One day, this path would be mine again, in its right time, and you would be there, waiting. But not today. Not with work still to be done.
But then the book goes into third person.
However, the story goes back and forwards in time (my head hurts) and I’m thinking that the past events might all be in first person and the current events in third (I want distance there, but immediacy in the back story, to bring home the grief feeling, where the people being grieved for are more vivid in the scenes they are in and held closer in first)
anyone know where this sort of approach has been used and worked well?
I have done something similar before in Waters and the Wild but, in that, the person in first person didn’t come into third person at any point and it was very formally done in terms of the structure.
I want The New Thing to be like a fable, a really pared down story (so pared down I deleted from 36000 to 8500 words 2 nights ago. Hey ho) and I came across a little 300 wonder I did lately and knew that was the vibe I wanted. This is it, changed to meet the story:
It’s okay to feel like you do, they told me. The communitysurrounded me with enquiries as to how I was coping. Theirhelpful hands brought dinners to ensure I was fed. They called to see I was alive, not off killing myself with grief. They called in the mornings to see I got up.
They told me not to keep taking myself off into the glen. It’s no good for you, they said, being alone so much. But the glen was in my heart and in my roots. It was the only place I could find peace.
Along the winding path that led from my house into the green wood glen. To the waterfall, thundering from the pools above.
I visited in the early morning, and in the evening when no one was near. Just me, on the still path, and the air winding around me, filling my nose, my throat, infecting my breathing so that it became thick and unnatural. Either that, or it was grief that filled me too full.
I walked there, because we once had. I sought you in the trees, in the pools, hoping to see you both coming to me, side by side, hand in hand, together or apart, in any way you could. Once, I was sure I did see you, on the other side of the water, silent, watching. I almost walked through the depths to you.
But the gentle shake of your head, dear Jean, made me stop, mid-step. You were right, this wasn’t the time: I needed to keep going until the trial, when I’d see Colin Thompson locked up for what he did. Locked where he couldn’t take the life of another.
Step by aching step, my eyes never leaving you, I backed away, to where the air was sweeter. One day, this path would be mine again, in its right time, and you would be there, waiting. But not today. Not with work still to be done.
But then the book goes into third person.
However, the story goes back and forwards in time (my head hurts) and I’m thinking that the past events might all be in first person and the current events in third (I want distance there, but immediacy in the back story, to bring home the grief feeling, where the people being grieved for are more vivid in the scenes they are in and held closer in first)
anyone know where this sort of approach has been used and worked well?
