Blog #5- Kristi DeMeester

When it comes to point of view, I feel constantly torn. Whenever I sit down to begin a story or the chapter of a novel, I find that I'm the unfaithful mate. I start by thinking, "Yes. I definitely want this story in first person," but I quickly begin to doubt myself, "Well, would it be better with a third person omniscient? Or maybe I should offer the point of view of several characters?" My problem with point of view, is that I can never seem to make up my mind, and oh boy, I cheat unabashedly.

With what I'm currently working on, however, I've decided to go with the first person, and I'm toying with the idea of bringing in the main character's mother's point of view as well (I hope I got all those possessives correct!). I may go back and rewrite some of the more pivotal sections from the perspective of an omniscient narrator, but I'll have to wait to make a decision on it until then. If I obsess too much about it now, I may never get back to it.

The reason I decided on first person though was because the nature of the story told me to do it. Only Lola could tell the story of her feelings towards her mother and her mother's suicide, and only Lola could tell the story of her ultimate decision. Lola's mother though, I feel, has just as a powerful story to tell, and I have to admit, it's going to be immense fun writing as a selfish ghost. Even if I scrap the whole section, I plan to write in her mother's point of view a couple of times even if it is just a jump start to get me going or lead me towards something revealing about her character.

The other novel I've been working on is in first person as well, and I prefer the story in first person, but I'm wanting to go back in and strengthen her voice; it was starting to fall flat in several areas.

A short story I've recently finished is told in the third person limited, and I spent some time on that story in the first person before deciding that it needed to be in third person.

What I appreciated about Olive Kitteridge was Strout's ability to change perspectives from story to story while still remaining faithful to the personalities of her characters and using her words to craft characters that are strikingly real. I'd never though attempting to weave together such perspectives with a constant motif, but it is certainly something I would like to try.

Here is the opening (I'M SHOUTING HERE! FIRST DRAFT ALERT!! FIRST DRAFT ALERT!!)to the novel, titled Paper Heart, I'm working on now, which is currently in first person...but....

Prologue:
The history of my family can be traced in the scars that cover the insides of my wrists. They are jagged and broken from multiple attempts at finally getting it right, from finally putting everything that shattered back together into some semblance of beauty and order. But the flesh around the scars will never reform, and my mother, my family, will never re-align into what it once was. And the sad thing about that is that what it once was, was nothing more than an elaborately crafted dance between my mother and me. Nothing more than a lie.

Chapter 1
It is Valentines Day and my mother is dead. Her small house is littered with fat, bumbling police officers who violate her dainty household items with their fat paws. One greasy man lifts her thimble from where it rests on her favorite mauve armchair before flipping it back onto the small white side table my mother had placed haphazardly next to her chair. "So I can see the TV while I sew, honey," she protested when I complained that the table was a nuisance, "I need something to occupy my mind." Another officer leans a scrawny, vein-covered arm against the pale blue of her walls. A color she picked for its calming effects, hoping that the iciness in the blue would somehow feed the monsters in her mind and hold them back for a bit longer, just a bit longer.

I want to scream at them. To tell them to pay some respect to her possessions. To tell them to get their fucking pig hands off of my mother’s stuff.

A gaunt officer wraps a ratty grey blanket around my shoulders. He smells like cigarettes and there is a small line of sweat forming on his upper lip. His badge shouts his last name at me accusingly, "WESLOWSKI! WESLOWSKI!" It blames me for my mother’s final act, for her splitting her body open like ripe fruit, the blood spilling from her wrists in dark ribbons.

"Ms. McDowell? I’m going to need to ask you some questions. Do you think you can answer them?"

The officer’s face is tired, and I don’t want to answer any of his questions. I want him to take the other officers and leave me alone to sort out my own questions.

"I’m sorry Officer, Weslowski, is it? Is there any way we could do this some other time?"

"Of course, Ms. McDowell," he pulls a small card from his wallet and offers it to me with the tips of his fingers as if I’m a disease he might catch, "When you’re ready, please call the number at the bottom. That’s my direct line."

I nod at him and wait for him to leave, but he shuffles his feet, "I’m real sorry, Ms. McDowell, but I’m wondering if it would be better if you didn’t stay here tonight. It’s awful late, and you probably shouldn’t be driving. Is there anyone we can call who could take you home?"

"No. There isn’t anyone else." The enormity of my response hits me hard, and I can feel my heart fluttering hard against my ribs. There isn’t anyone else. Mom was my anyone else, and now she’s gone.

"I can give you a lift home, if you need one."

I want to laugh at him and tell him that where I’m sitting is home, but I reply, "Yes, thank you." And I leave my mother’s house for the last time.

The streets of Windham are quiet in the way that Georgia streets can be quiet during the deepness of night, and I try to follow the familiar scenery of my small town as it flashes by the window. Officer Weslowski is smoking and has rolled his window down in my honor, but in the air I can smell the velvet musk of summer and taste the humidity on my tongue. There has always been something about the smell of summer that reminds me of the sickly sweet scent of death, a reminder that in the lush greenery of life, death is an ever-blooming flower.