These blog posts are about exploring creative writing as a support for our mental health and our over-all wellbeing.
With some practice and a fair wind, you are writing more freely and uncovering some emotions which you are finding a way of reflecting back on. There is one particular tool in creative writing which I would like to introduce you to: point of view.
Whenever we start to write, we choose a point of view. Will we use ‘I’ in the first person or ‘he’, ‘she’ or ‘they’ in the third person? It is also possible to use the second person ‘you’, addressing the reader directly, though there is always a narrator behind, doing the addressing.
Changing from one point of view to another can often change the sense of distance in a piece. Try it for yourself. Write about something which happened today, a short incident which may have some emotional content for you, using ‘I’. Then re-write it using ‘he’ or ‘she’ as if you are watching yourself going through whatever it was that happened. Finally try using ‘you’, as if you are telling yourself what happened.
A very simple example:
I went for a walk by the sea this morning, the weather was chill against my skin. I thought about other walks I had taken with a good friend who has since left the area and no longer contacts me.
She went for a walk by the sea this morning, the weather was chill against her skin. She thought about other walks she had taken with a good friend who has since left the area and no longer contacts her.
You went for a walk by the sea this morning, the weather was chill against your skin. You thought about other walks you had taken with a good friend who has since left the area and no longer contacts you.
Once you have done this exercise, consider how you felt doing it and how you feel reading the
different pieces back. Have you noticed anything? Generally speaking, I find using third person gives me greater distance and using ‘you’ can feel supportive or accusatory. However, this is your writing and your experience, so go with what happens with you.
Another way to use Point of View is to take another person’s perspective. Maybe you have had a recent encounter which has been uncomfortable for you. Try writing it out using ‘I’ – this is your own point of view. Then imagine yourself into the other person’s body, write it out again, also using ‘I’, but really trying to see the exchange through the other person’s eyes and to feel it through their senses and body. Finally, imagine you are an inanimate object – perhaps a clock on the wall – describe what happened using third person. You are now seeing yourself and the other person from a distance, from the outside.
Have you any experiences of using the technique of ‘Point of View’ in this way which you would like to share?
