Week Three Wrap Up

We only had one class in week three because of holiday. We learned about the different types of narrators–limited, limited omniscient, and omniscient.

Stan talked about how the narration changes in a story. For example, Catcher in the Rye starts with the young Holden Caulfield speaking directly to the reader. Then it changes. The author steps back and narrates a story. Then it changes again and Holden speaks directly to the reader. It was very interesting. I hadn’t noticed that before or if I did, I didn’t know it was a “narrational contrstruct.”

One thing that struck me was the idea that the narrator and the narrational character are not the same people. The narrator is separate from the character by time.

We talked about several books in class that I’d like to read…if I can find the time: House of Leaves, The Domino Men, and Finnegan’s Wake.

I updated my first draft of the Katie story over the weekend. I changed the title. The story remains much the same except that I changed it from third to first person, which fits with what I’m doing with my other stories I stripped out some cheesy lines and hopefully, didn’t add any new ones. I’ll know when I read it again a week or a month from now.

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Katie

By Greg Halpin

She showed up at the café shortly before closing time. It had been a while since I saw her.

“Hey,” she said.

“Hey,” I said.

“I have to talk to you, Hank.” I hated when conversations started like that. It usually meant trouble. This one probably wasn’t going to be any different.

“I’m pregnant,” she said. Read the rest of this entry »