There was a woman sitting at the roadside between two towns when a man approached. He stopped and asked the woman what the town ahead was like.

The woman asked, “What was the town you’ve just come from like?”

The man replied, “Oh, it was awful. Filthy and full of thieves and cheats.”

The woman nodded. “You’ll find the town ahead much the same.”

The man rolled his eyes and went on his way. 

A little later, another man came along the same road, coming from the same place and heading to the same place, and asked the same question. 

Again, the woman asked, “What was the town you’ve just come from like?”

This man replied, “Oh, it was a lovely place. The streets were clean and the people kind and 

generous.”

The woman nodded. “You’ll find the town ahead much the same.”

I love this story, because it makes the point that life is what we make of it. That’s not to deny that some

people encounter more hardships than others – there is a big difference between the life of a middle class teacher in Surrey and a refugee from Sudan. However, you often find that the people who have suffered the most are the ones with the most positive outlook, focusing on the joys of life, small and large. Whereas people who have experienced to real difficulty to speak of, whinge endlessly about their lot.

Having a positive outlook to life is a good in itself and should need no further justification. However, it can also be good for your writing.

By noticing little things in life that make us happy, we become more observant to detail and these details are often simple and sensual, relating to the five senses. If we deliberately notice sights, smells, sounds, tastes and things we can touch that bring us pleasure, then we can draw on that memory bank when it comes to our writing to draw people into our fictional worlds.

Try this exercise:

1.       Make five lists of things that make you happy, under the headings: sight, sound, smell, taste and touch. Add at least ten things to each list. Don’t be surprised if some lists are much harder than others.

For example

Sound

1.  The sound of birds singing in the garden
2. The sound of keys in the door as my partner arrives home from work
3. The sound of a breeze through the trees on a summer’s day
4. The sound of the dog panting after a good game of chase
5.  The sound of live piano music in an echoey old house
6. The sound of bacon sizzling in a pan
7. The combination of uplifting chords in my favourite song
8. The sound of a newborn baby crying for the first time
9. The sound of a powerful shower
10. The hum of a powerful car engine

Add your favourite sensations in the comments below!

Credit to The Five Minute Writer by Margaret Geraghty for the inspiration for this post – if you liked it, you should buy the book.


Have you tried The Novel Factory? Novel writing softwarewritten for writers, by writers.

If you want the obvious, then you can say that point of view is the perspective from which you view the story. But what does this actually mean.

Well, there are two common writing styles - first person and third person.

In a first person story your point of view is easy. You view the whole story through the eyes of one character. This means that you show everything as it is experienced by your main character. Your main character is the narrator:

I woke up late. I went to the balloon shop. The man in the shop looked at me funny.

In the third person you tell the story at a level removed. You tell the story as an omnipresent narrator that shows the reader the actions of various characters:

John woke up late. He went to the balloon shop. The shop's proprietor gave John a funny look.

The easiest way to write in the third person is to use what is known as 'Third Person Limited'. This is similar to using first person in that the narrator only follows one character.

For the more complicated plot, there is 'Third Person Omniscient'. In this case the story is told from multiple, often conflicting, viewpoints.

When writing in the third person it's easy to get carried away and tell things that the current point of view character couldn't know. The narrator can theoretically tell the reader about anyone and anything. However, in practice this can cause all kinds of confusion for the reader.

As a reader, you want to get into the head of one character at a time, you want to view the world as they view it and sympathise with their point of view. The reader wants to feel their pain and joy. Using multiple viewpoints within a novel is common because there is time enough to get to know more than one person.

However, a general rule of thumb, it's a good idea to stick with one character for the duration of a scene. Switching viewpoints within a scene is a known as head-hopping and can be rather disorientating because the reader doesn't know who they are supposed to be identifying with.

So, that's first and third person - what happened to the second person?

Well, that's you.

Not much fiction gets written in the second person because it can feel quite intrusive and strange:

Like that time when you woke up late. You went to the balloon shop. The man in the shop gave you a funny look.

It's tolerable in a short section, but can you imagine a whole novel informing you of the things you'd supposedly done? There's always the temptation to think: No I didn't. I wouldn't do that.

Well, don't look at me; I didn't do it and it must have been one of us.

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