Keeping Your Distance

1
Keeping Your Distance

• Third Person Objective
• Point of View

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2
Points of View

• First Person close up and personal. The writer
  can get inside the narrators heart and mind.
• Use the pronouns I and we.
• Third Person Objective Distance between the
  narrator and other characters. Many times the
  narrator is an unseen person who does not
  participate in the story at all. (think about a
  movie or the tv show Desperate Housewives)
• Uses the pronouns he, she, they, etc.

3
Third Person ObjectivePoint of View

• Narrator can only know what is heard and seen
  from outside the characters.
• Describes actions and people using the five
  senses. What the narrator sees, hears, touches,
  smells and tastes.
• No insight to character thoughts and feelings.
• Story must speak for itself.
• A disadvantage is the last of emotion can seem
  cold and uninvolved. Good writers can overcome
  this.

4
Third Person ObjectivePoint of View

• Thoughts and emotions are not used.
• The reader is left to infer the characters inner
  thoughts and feelings. The narrator will know
  which details to use to communicate those.
• Each character is equal to the other. There is
  not a main character. One character might have
  more focus than another, but is not a true main
  character.
• The story becomes more important than any single
  character.

5
Third Person Objective Passage

• Spades thick fingers made a cigarette with
  deliberate care, sifting a measured quantity of
  tan flakes down into curved paper, spreading the
  flakes so that they lay equal at the ends with a
  slight depression in the middle. (Dashiell
  Hammetts The Maltese Falcon)
• What can the readers infer about this person?

6
Third Person Objective Point of View

• Spade is deliberate, cool, efficient and
  painstaking during a crisis.
• The author never used those words, but instead
  described what was seen to get to those words.

7
How Many Boys?

• Where does the narrator show or report character
  emotion in the story? Cite at least two examples.

8
How Many Boys?

• Where does the narrator show or report character
  emotion in the story? Cite at least two
  examples.
• Fathers relief the second son is home Ah!
  The man sighed to his wife.
• Father puts his arm around the boy, so the two
  of them would fit together just right, and he
  kisses the boys hair.

9
How Many Boys?

• Why do you think Kauffman chose not to name the
  characters? What difference does that decision
  make?

10
How Many Boys?

• Why do you think Kauffman chose not to name the
  characters? What difference does that decision
  make?
• To indicate the distance between the narrator and
  characters. The characters are anonymous and it
  implies this can be anyone and this could happen
  to anyone.

11
How Many Boys?

• What importance does the time of day have in the
  story? How many references to time are there?

12
How Many Boys?

• What importance does the time of day have in the
  story? How many references to time are there?
• Occurs in early evening, a time when families are
  generally together. It begins at supper, then
  progresses to darkness and night which emphasizes
  the missing boy and makes that more disturbing.
  There are four references to supper, and several
  references to darkness and turning on the lights.
  A direct time reference occurs just as the story
  is ending its almost time for the news when
  the family sits together and listens.

13
How Many Boys?

• What is the significance of the title?

14
How Many Boys?

• What is the significance of the title?
• Both the number of boys in the family (2) and the
  number of boys who might be missing (one or two).
  Mystery and the uncertainty create the suspense
  of the story.

15
Reservations about Third Person Objective Point
of View

• How do I know if I am using enough (or too much)
  detail?
• Dont worry too much about this. Focus on
  writing dialogue and action. Let the characters
  tell the story.
• My style is being cramped. This isnt the way I
  write.
• This will improve your writing skills. Writing
  in this point of view requires discipline, but
  the end result is worth the extra effort and
  aggravation.

16
WP 10.1 Part A

• Fill out the tables on part A
• 2 4 characters need to be involved in each
  action Do not include yourself as a character
  (third person POV)
• 2 Come up with a way the ordinary routine of
  question 1 is disturbed.
• You do not have to be elaborate with the
  disturbance.
• Answer questions 3 and 4

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WP 10.1 Part B

• Questions 1 3 involve using the book prompt to
  practice setting scenes and writing
  interruptions.
• WIJ Youll use your own work from Part A to set
  2 4 characters in a scene with action and that
  action is interrupted.
• Use third person POV. Do not use thoughts or
  feelings.
• 200 word minimum