maintain the narrator’s way of speaking and vocabulary while still pro-
jecting those of the child.
Alternatively, you can structure each of the three points of view in the
first person. If you do that you need to think about voice, grammar and
vocabulary. Voice is particularly important: one point of view might be a
very flat account, another highly emotional (though remember that the
concept of voice is an over-simplification and that any character may have
several voices). If you use the first person you may find yourself writing a
series of interior monologues which consists of each character’s unspoken
but internally verbalised thoughts.
Another possibility is to create one account in the first person, one in
the third person, and one in the second person. This can produce an
unusual and experimental effect.
Let’s look now at a student response to this exercise, Bryoni Trezise’s
‘An All-time Favourite Motto’. Bryoni uses two points of view as a vehicle
for wittily satirising gender relations:
Example 5.16
George has always admired Jeanette. He likes the way she slides
from tile to tile. All hips and bottom, manoeuvred expertly to emit
just the right amount of sway. Sway is very important to George.
A supremely executed sway never goes astray.That’s George’s third
favourite motto. On Sundays Jeanette wears her flaming turban of
voracious orange. Jeanette’s Sunday soufflé.That’s what George calls
it. He can’t help noticing her licorice assets. Her smoothly sculpted
leg, the sizzle in her step. She flickety-flicks her fingers with morsels
of efficiency. She’s a tasty morsel herself, you know. All h ips and
b ottommm. George is reminded of sausages squirming in sweet
mustard. A sideways glance from beneath a finely arched eyebrow.
A sign! She wants me...um. I was just
wondering how many
men can a girl
take at once ’cause
you know
I’ve always
just
wondered about the big ones what’s
it like with
really big
ones do they fit youNarrative, narratology, power 101