Sat, May 19 2012
First Person Narrative Workshop
First Person Narrative Workshop . . . with Bribes!!!!
I woke up rather more suddenly than I liked, and lay in the bed listening to the silence of the bedroom. The coals in the fire were down to a very modest hissing sound, practically no sound at all; so the girl hadn't been in to make up the fire yet, this morning. There seemed to be a suspicion of light coming around the curtains, so it was morning at least; since it was June, it was quite possibly four o'clock in the morning, since the sun comes early and stays late at this latitude.
I didn't hear anything. I was, I admit, very comfortable in the bed; and just as I was ready to take a deep breath and happily tuck myself away for another quarter of an hour – I was to roust my wretched cousin Phileas from his bed well before two o'clock to go riding, and one does so enjoy one's opportunities to discomfort one's wretched cousin; he does aggrieved misery so well, and he actually enjoys himself wonderfully as well, the monster – when something bounced against my hip, and I realized that there was something on the bed.
I turned my head to look down across the billowing clouds of the feather-bed (such a lovely thing, a feather-bed, especially when it's rather cold in the mornings, even in June) and opened one eye a smidge to see what I could see. The Bishop kept no cats, and the wolf-hounds were kept in stables; and this thing had the feel of something with an edge, as though someone were resting a fore-arm across my upper thigh. If it were that, I wished whomever it was joy of the experience, because I was going to shortly proceed to dispossess them of said forearm and use it to beat them about the head and shoulders.
It was a book.
It appeared to be sitting up by itself, and there was something about the cant of its cover that gave the most unusual impression of waiting. I could see nothing holding it up, however, and there certainly seemed to be no one in the room. I'm never without a cutlass or something similar within easy reach, needless to say; so I tucked half-a-dozen throwing knives between the fingers of my left hand and turned to sit up in bed.
The book hopped.
Hopped, I said. Yes. It did. Settled itself on my lap as though it were a tame tabby, and tilted its cover up at me with a very inquiring sort of a slant to it, in some way. I considered what I could recall of recent events and found no suspicious hints of drugs or debauchery – more was the pity – but there was a book on the bed and it was looking at me. Was it one of good Passepartout's experiments? There is no end to the man's ingenuity.
I felt rather foolish with a fistful of knives, all of a sudden. But I did not relinquish my grip as I sat up and pushed myself to a sitting position, folded my hands across the snowy white coverlet as well as I could with a fistful of throwing-knives, and asked the obvious question.
"Who sent you, and what are you doing here?"
The book tottered for a moment on the base of its spine, and I feared for its balance. I need not have been concerned. It was merely opening itself to its title page, which – since I was well awake, by now, and could focus – read "Miss Odensdisir Requests."
This answered my question and told me absolutely nothing, at the same time. I have little patience for gnomic utterances, and ever since Phileas was so undeservedly lucky as to come by the services of his valet we have had gnomic utterances in superfluity. One would, of course, rather die than snap at Passepartout, especially since one's wretched cousin – Phileas, yes, that's right – has usually snapped at Passepartout already whether he needed to or not. I was, however, very relaxed, and in a fairly good mood still. We had arrived at the old house at Minors just three days ago, but already one felt as though one were five years younger under the influence of the beautiful grounds, the excellent food, the luxurious furnishings, and the company of one's young friend Jules of whom one is actually rather fond. For this reason (or at least I suppose after the fact that such was the reason) I merely asked my question again, rather than electing to stir up the fire with the impertinent volume in question.
"Which means precisely nothing, you silly tome. Try again. Who sent you, what are you doing here, and what is to prevent me from using you for a purpose too indelicate to contemplate?" Because it did look like a nicely bound book, and the pages did seem to be of a luscious thick cream-laid linen paper. Just the thing. Yes, to wrap cartridges, what did you think I meant?
The book took a tiny little hop, and turned a page. There was more text. "Miss Odensdisir Requests the favor of the Participation of the Ladies and Gent of the SJJV Board in a Workshop on Narrative Voice."
"Narrative voice?" It sounded suspiciously academic, to me, and I knew that dear Jules could not possibly be to blame. Jules is a better student than I ever was, to be sure, but that is not a feat difficult to accomplish, if the truth were to told.
New page. "In the "first person" narrative voice the author speaks to the reader as though in a personal conversation." The letters in the phrase "first person" were gilt and pointed in crimson, with little jade-green highlights of ivy twined about them. Very baroque. "This is to be contrasted with the third person narrative voice in which the text does not speak to the reader, but in which the reader overhears, as it were, the story in progress. Selections available in the third person include limited and omniscient points of view, while the first person may elect to function as an Unreliable Narrator, an Older but Wiser Teller of Tales, or a Reporter of Action as it Happens."
This was a great deal of text to expect a person to read before she had had her morning coffee, in my opinion. One had to squint to read it, and this gave a person a bit of a headache. "In short you are proposing a school exercise, I gather. Some – Miss Odensdisir, pity the poor woman born to a name like that – wishes her friends and acquaintances to beguile themselves by writing a story in the first person, I take it?"
The book tilted itself back with a dramatic flourish and turned its page to reveal the single word "Yes," inscribed across the span of the two pages. I was not quite certain whether it was being impertinent or not, really, but I was getting hungry, and tired of conversing with a book.
"There is unquestionably an advertisement in the back," I noted aloud, and shifted myself out from underneath the thing to find my slippers. "Tell you what, leave yourself open at the place, and I'll read you when I've had my morning wash." Because if it gave the slightest indication of intending to follow me into the water-closet there were going to be abrupt adjustments of understanding in its near future. It didn't seem to be disappointed, however. It merely toppled onto its back on the bed.
When I returned from my morning ablutions the girl had been in to make up the fire, and there was a lovely breakfast tray on the table. I picked up the book and examined its advertisement, keeping place with a piece of bacon that grew shorter as the text wore on (because the bacon was good and the text was wearing). This is what it said:
"There will be five characters – Passepartout, Jules, Rebecca, Phileas, and Other (your choice of other SAJV characters such as Chatsworth or the Dishy Prussian General or Angelo Rimini, I suppose) -- and five objects: an umbrella; a large raisin pudding (with or without rum sauce); a wig; the splintered arm of a wooden chair; and a horseshoe. (Cracker crumbs may be substituted for the large raisin pudding. However, if you elect to substitute cracker crumbs for the large raisin pudding, it is advised that you forgo the rum sauce.). You choose which character wakes up in the morning to find which object on, under, or in the bed, and you let the character tell us all about it in his or her own words. You will be using "I" and "me" rather than "she" and "her" or "he" and "him."
Your motivation for participating in this workshop may include any or all of the following: (1) it could be fun; (2) a person doesn't get much of a chance to practice the first person voice; (3) it beats a poke in the eye with a sharp stick; and (4) every person who participates gets to tell Miss Odensdisir who (rather than what) she wants whom to wake up in bed with, and Miss Odensdisir will obediently write the vignette in the first person voice, suitable for reading on the SJJV board.
If more than one Nice writer specifies the same two people waking up in bed together with the same first person voice, Miss Odensdisir will write the second vignette for reading on the SJJVA board rather than the SJJV board, with all that that implies.
If you are interested, please make your selection and post your scene at some point between now and the Ides of March. Miss Odensdisir will do her best to keep up.
I hope you will be interested in participating in this workshop and trying your hand at the first person voice in fiction!"
Now, as to whatever that might mean, I'm sure I don't know. I found the reference to the pudding intriguing, however. If there was a way to present Phileas with a cold, wet haggis when he put his feet to the bedside rug in the morning I was sure that Passepartout would – be unable to resist the challenge, so I finished my breakfast and went out to see what could be done before Phileas spoiled the joke by waking up before noon for once in his miserable life.
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