Point-of-view exercise: Think of someone in your life with whom you had a differing (or even a contrary) perspective on a mutual, shared experience. Maybe there was an argument or major disagreement; or, maybe the two of you have completely differing memories of a past event. Bring to mind someone and something that the two of you both participated in.
For the purposes of this creative exercise, your job is as the writer is to enter fully into the character of that other person, and make them your narrator. Look at, think about, and feel the event from this other perspective, and write a short narrative (story) that is completely in the voice of that person. If they were to write about this mutual experience, what would they say? What might they have been feeling and experiencing at the time? How do they view it differently from you, and what might be some reasons why?
Some guidelines:
This should not be written like an essay, nor should it be in summary mode. It’s a creative writing exercise.
There is no need to begin with any explanation on your part about the situation you are writing about, what “really” happened, and so on. The story itself should contain all the parts needed to make it a complete short story for the reader
Your writer’s job is not to make the situation “right,” or revise history, but instead to convey one experience/story from someone else’s perspective. [Hint: fiction authors do this all the time. Think of yourself as a fiction author, and you are now to write from the POV of a character who is not you.]
Instructions:
Write at least 2 pages.
Prepare your manuscript professionally, according to MLA conventions:
Provide a full MLA header on the first page (left-hand, top) that includes your name, course information, and date. Insert a page header (last name and page number) across the top right of each page.
Give each your piece a unique title, and include that title, centered, above your text. See sample page setup.
Save your file in .docx or .pdf format. You can obtain a free version of MS Office by signing up as a student with your MCC address. If you use any other word processing program, such as Google Docs, WordPerfect, WordPad, or Pages, you should take the necessary additional steps to SAVE AS (or export) your file in MS Word format. If I cannot open or read your files, they will unfortunately receive zeros.
