kill yr narrator

Writing/Editing Prompt: Kill Yr Narrator

Basic: Take a first person story, new or old—one that has a beginning, a middle, and an end. Go to the bottom of the story. Press return twice after the final bit of punctuation on the final paragraph. Add a little section sign. This one:

(On a Mac, it’s Option+6.)

Hit return two more times. Let another narrator take over. Explain somehow that the first narrator is dead. Reassess the story from the second narrator’s perspective.

Advanced: Take a third person story, new or old—one that has a beginning, a middle, and an end. Go to the bottom of the story. Press return twice after the final bit of punctuation on the final paragraph. Add a little section sign.

Hit return two more times. Let something else take over. Consider: if an omniscient narrator “dies,” what happens to the world of the story? Does another omniscient narrator fill the vacuum? Consider: God is dead. What now? Does the world end? Does the narrator’s creator decide to step out from behind the corpse and speak? Does the world remake itself?

Craft Notes / 8 Comments
January 5th, 2010 / 4:28 pm