Do you prefer the intimacy of the "I" first-person narrator? Or the layers of address and embodiment in a second-person "you"? Or the flexibility and scope of the almighty third-person narration? Why choose one point of view over another?

 

Point of view (POV) is one of the primary decisions a writer must make to tell a story. POV forms the basis of one of the most astonishing aspects of writing fiction: the ability to inhabit another consciousness and imagine the inner lives of others. In this craft class, we will drill down into the particulars of each POV and closely read excerpts of published fiction. How do authors utilize POV to reveal character and move the story forward? How do they break POV in formally inventive ways?

 

Through in-class generative exercises, participants will experiment with different POVs. By the end of the class, you will come away with deeper insights into not only how stories are imagined, but how decisions are made in the ways those stories are told--that is, who tells this story and why?

 

Class meets online Tuesday, March 23, 6 - 7:30 pm Central. A longer, in-person session will be offered at Write On Saturday, April 10, 10 am - noon.

 

Member discount: Members of Write On receive a 10% discount on all classes and workshops. To become a member, please click here. To receive the discount, members must log in to the website using their unique password and enter member10 in the promotion code box. The code is case sensitive.

 

Teaching Artists:

Brandon J. Choi is a writer from California. His work can be found in Carve , Electric Literature , and BuzzFeed. He is a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop.

 

Gouen Park is a fiction writer, printer, web developer, and educator from Detroit Lakes, Minnesota. They earned a BA from Pomona College and fellowships from Periplus Collective and Truman Capote. She is an MFA Candidate at the Iowa Writers' Workshop and a former DACA recipient. Goeun is interested in tone, formal constraints, omniscient address, and how people continue in the aftermath of violence and apathy. Their Pushcart-nominated story, "A Young Woman's Guide to Self-Deportation," can be found in The Seventh Wave.

 

Ajay Patri is an MFA in Fiction candidate at the Iowa Writers' Workshop, where he is a Sonny Mehta Fellow. His work has been shortlisted for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize and the Bristol Short Story Prize and has appeared in The Rumpus. He is also the recipient of a fellowship from the South Asia Speaks Foundation and a grant from James Patterson's Go Finish Your Book! Campaign.