Gill Lee
Forum Replies Created
-
Replies
-
Yes, I’m reading Debi’s comments that way – that narrator Xander is always PD1. No matter how voice-y
Wow! I think it’s so much harder to see in first person! Thanks so much to Chithrupa for posting and Debi for analysing and modelling. If you can get a handle on this, you first person narrative people I can see how wonderfully it can be used but OMG it’s harder. I’m struggling with it. So because Xander is the narrator, the dead Xander, it’s all got to sound Xander-y. But there are two Xanders. The one who is dead – narrator Xander. And the one who is alive – character Xander. And PD is all to do with character Xander. Have I got that?
I kind of get it thinking about Great Expectations where the older, wiser Pip is talkign about the younger Pip’s experience, and Dickens uses it to show the snobbery of Pip and his mistreatment of Joe in the middle sections. But I think it’s easier there because they are two quite distinctive voices. But Xander alive and Xanader dead are both quite waspish, so gosh that’s hard….on the other hand, it’s a pretty similar voice in tone, vocabulary etc????
Thanks, Julie. Debi felt the second cockroach bit was more the narrator’s view than Laura’s and I think she’s right, really. Too detailed. Kill those darlings!
I’m sure Debi will set us straight but I think it’s to do with whose view of the wind it is. If it’s the narrator’s view – it’s PD1. if it’s Noahs’ view, it might be closer. I’m wondering if ‘their’ might imply it’s Noah’s view of the house?
Yes, that would be great! Are we allowed to share contact details? We should ask Debi I guess what the protocol is…though can’t see there’s a data protection issue if we’re happy to do so….
I love your use of 4
Ha. Those old knickers have got to stay! Please! So a car crash definitely deserves fragments ‘Oh-God. Mashed-up dead. In old knickers’ would still makes sense to me – I’d know exactly what she was thinking. Such skillful phrases to suggest the whole!
PD1 – I think as soon as you refer to cleaning a car as an ‘obsession’ we’re further in, than 3 as it’s a judgement, isn’t it, by a character?
And it’s interesting in your example, how much more powerful you can be, just by skipping out the filtering. ‘Shit, she wasn’t going to stop’ is PD4 and better for it, than She realised the car was not going to stop which would be the PD3 …
What an action-packed novel this is!
Learning so much from other peoples’ writing! Your settings, for example, and using a character’s response to them to feed into other things they are thinking about – may well use that somewhere!
Yes, it seems naturally. But then I thought of Richard and his firefighting! He could easily start with a setting in 5, couldn’t he? The flames, the heat, the smell….
Love the personification of that wind in your PD1 sentences, which shows how alive PD1 can be in skilful hands! Felt your pain here – The unfortunate one, whose bedroom was on that side of the house, was Noah. If he wanted any sleep, he would have to do something where I think you just have to accept you’re sliding (hah got the lingo!) into 3 cos I think you would more naturally have written If Noah wanted any sleep…..
Unable to sleep, Noah jumped out of bed. Someone’s got to close the slamming side gate, and Mum’s asleep. Why did I forget to latch the stupid gate, he thought, as he threw on his baggy, granny-knitted jumper?
For some reason here, I felt the slide 3-4-3 didn’t work and wonder if it’s because of the logic of the ideas, which has to take precedence, rather than the slide as such? So you’d realise you’d forgotten to latch the gate and then decide you had to get up and do it, rather than the other way round? I’m sure this is just the artificiality of the exercise because in your full paragraph you missed this out and it read really well!
But I think that kind of thinking about your character is brilliant, makes her much more real and specific. It’s just how to weave it it, not whether too. It’s an excellent detail to use!
A marshmallow fight amongst cricketers! What a perfect comedic scene. I’m imagining a bake off tent but with lager and men in suits.
The ‘falsetto’ laugh and ‘smirking’ are great descriptors are great and the filtering of ‘knew’ is definitely PD3.
In your closest one, I’m wondering if that final sentence could break into two, with even more impact (!) …..show your men impeachable calm. Return fire!
Learned so much from your writing!
Gosh, so pleased with myself! I’ve found this exercise so interesting and already, as you suggested thinking of the precise moment of that use of 5, and of getting it real rather than ‘writerly’. Such helpful feedback too, Debi and not just cos it’s a gold star kind of day……
Ha. I’m sure when Debi leaps in she will make us all bloody better!
