Katykins Weblog

I had four short stories to critique over the weekend. I’ve seen a common thing that people have been doing in their stories: Writing them in 3rd person and giving the narrators voice the personality of the main character. I am not sure if this is a proper/popular thing to do, and maybe it is just a matter of personal taste, but quite frankly it annoys me.

When I stumble upon this technique it tears me from the story, causing me to step out and reread the passage to make sure I am understanding it correctly. I look for signs that is is just the characters thought, such as “He/she thought”. When I can’t find anything hinting to this, I keep reading while looking for any sign of the narrator having a disctinct personality.

One way I think that this technique could possibly work is by giving personality to the narrator through out the rest of the story. If a fly on the wall narrator does not have a distinct voice through out a story, I don’t think that they should have one at all.

Another common thing I am seeing is switching between past and present tenses when a person is doing something important. Now I know this is a beginning writing course and that I also am a novice, but in the stories over the weekend the switching between tenses seemed to be on purpose. Hopefully these were all just errors and not a technique that has totally eluded me thus far.

My birthday was amazing. Matt took me to the Chanhassen Dinner Theater. Dinner was amazing, and their was a rose and some alochol free wine waiting for us. When dinner was over he got down on one knee and proposed. I said yes! I was going to write a review of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat, but I don’t remember that much of the performance. We are going to wait until next summer to get married(we’re kindof poor right now) but I’m so excited that I just want to plan it now.