3rd person:
“Which is apparently unprecedented, or not unprecedented, but—”
“But very unusual.”
“Largely. Yeah, largely.”
Thomas looked back down at the newspaper and continued to read.
“Historical,” she said.
He nodded. She was looking out the window, staring the sun down. It cut into her eyes and made her squint. Thomas paused in his reading to examine her over the top of his newspaper. He thought her rather pretty.
“Oh, if I could go back now…” The sun threw sparks into her red hair.
“Go back…”
She tore her eyes away from the sun to look at him, and he thought he saw its light still lingering there.
“Home.”
And she was squinting at the sun again.
2nd person:
“I really want more chicken, but there isn’t any more.”
What do you say to that? You might say gee, that’s really too bad or you might say maybe that’s because you ate it all, but you think it best not to say anything, so you continue looking down at your plate of food and continue feeding yourself, pretending you didn’t hear.
“I need more water.”
You’ve been sitting here for an hour now and you wished fifty-four minutes ago that you hadn’t listened to your friend who’d set you up. After her first plate of food you’d already listed twelve other places you’d rather be, and by the time she finished her fourth course, you’d revised it to include twenty-seven others.
She has her mouth full but she manages to talk between chews and swallows.
“The beef’s a little salty but it’s bearable.”
No, you think. It’s not bearable. In fact you find her quite repulsive.
Look, you say. They’re putting the buffet away. The restaurant is closing.
She looks surprised. “Oh!” A bit of meat flies from her mouth and lands two inches away from your fork.
You stand up to excuse yourself and walk quickly towards the restroom.
1st person:
“Cigarette for the winner?”
He passed one to me and I lit it against the wind.
He laughed. “I’m the only fucking sober one here.”
I watched as he swung the beer bottle in the direction of his mouth and missed, sending glugs of beer down the front of his shirt. He cast the empty bottle aside and I watched as it rolled down the pavement, gritting against the cement and making a hollow sound.
He made to stand up but swayed instead. I stood to help him but he pushed me aside, angry now.
“I’m the only damn fucking sober one here.”
1 response so far ↓
moatman // April 15, 2008 at 10:28 am
The 3rd person scene was stronger in its descriptions than in the use of dialogue; you sort of went the easy route with the dialogue and had it be part of a newspaper reading but I can definitely see how any other way would be impossible. Your descriptions are beautiful here; I can’t wait for you to break loose in the poetry unit. “The sun threw sparks in her red hair,” because it both applies to the image of her hair as well as the passion it “sparks” in her onlooker.
I like how you transformed the picky comments in the dialogue of the second person sketch, turning a little bit of opinion into a repulsive woman. All in all, the piece may have been stronger as a first person narrator, maybe you could try that out if you revise the scene.
I also liked how you created tension with the dialogue in the first person sketch, by describing the guy as saying exactly the opposite of what we know he is. It made me curious about the characters and the situation, and it’s definitely in the right direction in terms of creating tension in fiction!