The Writer's Idea Book by Jack Heffron

Author:Jack Heffron [Heffron, Jack]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: F+W Media, Inc.
Published: 2011-12-14T13:00:00+00:00

No thoughts or interpretations are included in this exchange. The writer simply observes and reports. This viewpoint is attractive for several reasons. The action of the story dictates and supplies a natural focus and gives immediacy to the narrative. Tension arises quickly as the reader tries to understand what is happening, why it’s happening, and what it means.

The difficulties of this viewpoint should be obvious. You must suggest the meaning of actions and details rather than explain them or have characters supply the meaning. If Jim begins wiping shot glasses when Alice arrives, you cannot explain that he always does this when he’s nervous. You must suggest his nervousness by describing how he wipes.

This viewpoint is rarely sustained for an entire story and is not used often anymore. It enjoyed a certain vogue in the late 1970s as part of the minimalist era. Raymond Carver, the godfather of minimalism, uses the objective viewpoint with amazing results in some of his early stories. Read his “Why Don’t You Dance?” for a great example of this viewpoint at work. The classic example of the objective approach is Hemingway’s story “Hills Like White Elephants,” in which a couple debates whether or not the woman should have an abortion. We enter neither character’s mind. In fact, they don’t even directly state what they’re discussing.

PROMPT: Describe a room using the objective viewpoint. Simply state the details. Don’t speculate on who lives there or on the person’s traits or tastes. But do select details that will show what the person is like by what is in her room.

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