I've written the following excerpt in 3rd person. Much as I try, I cannot find another way to voice the moments of joy apparent in this particular episode and writing about them in the 1st person involves more telling than showing. It was hard to contemplate allowing myself to re-experience this properly to write it that way anyway. The background: After a second round of palliative chemotherapy, just before the third, I am just about well enough to 'do some stuff'. At this point I'm not expected to live more than a few months unless the chemotherapy can extend that. Recording family events for keepsakes, for when I was no longer there, was top of my agenda. This particular trip took us to London Zoo. How do you find it? How does the 3rd person point of view impact the story telling?
They’re wrapped up warm, she in a black fleece deerstalker, all of them in outsized puffer coats. Soon the little boy’s face looks red raw, his top lip gleaming with snot. It’s a bitter day.
They’re all holding hands. The bouncing boy between his parents, arms stretched up to meet their hands. He shouts “One. Two, three!” expecting to be swung up into the air. The man lifts him single handed, his free hand toting a camera at the ready. The woman puts one foot in front of the other, trying to keep up with her son and determined to frame the day as a normal family outing.
The car was parked mere meters from the entrance but already the effort of the morning and weight of the staged occasion is taking its toll. Head down a little, she hopes no one notices her face crumpling. It’s the toddler’s first trip to the zoo but it will be her last.
The man is busy, rightly winding up the excitement.
“What animal’s are we going to see Max? Can you think of the big animals that live at the zoo?”
“Elephants!” He shouts, trying to break free to run.
She’s already tired and struggling to join in, but focusing on maternal tasks, wipes snot from the eager little face. Nausea rolls over her in waves. Despite the cold, her insides boil with the chemicals her bladder is keen to empty.
Quickly through the ticket booths and out to an empty gathering area where on busier, warmer days, excited school children must be rallied and briefed on school trip rules. There’s a fleeting thought; she’ll never hear of any of those. She shuts out the future and focuses instead on toilet signs ahead. The man takes the little boy to the mens so they’re all set to go around together. First out, she sinks onto a bench, the desperate task of family fun marred by bitter wind in this lonely animal prison. In her head it had promised to be an oasis of life.
“Smile!” Her husband points the camera at her, attempting to fulfil their mission. Too late to change her mind or come up with a better solution, she smiles. She looks down the camera at the boy, the teenager, the young man she will never know. One day he will be looking back at her. She wants him to see someone he would have liked to meet, brave and cheerful – not broken.
Another wave of nausea and sweat rushes up so she pulls off the hat. He takes another shot at his stricken target, head bare and white, vulnerable in the raw air.
The little boy is shouting something that must be zebra but his Dad is now hugging his wife, torn. No time to explore her thoughts, he takes her hand. “Come on.” The little boy is making a break for it so he lets go of her again.
She cannot keep up, so the man grabs the boy and swings him aloft onto his shoulders and slows his pace. Soon the wriggling toddler is craning his neck to see what’s next. She drifts behind, watching the two of them. This is how it will be now. The two of them.
Enclosures pass in a daze. Constrained, bleak, inadequate. Their occupants’ reality goes unseen. We’re supposed to be saving them, she thinks.
As if Noah’s Ark is moored around the bend, two heads on long necks pop over a wooden fence.
“Raff! Raff! Mummy! Look! Look!”
Like the lookout in a crows nest, he lurches to point. The man holds on tight with both hands so he doesn’t fall, the camera left to swing at his elbow. Delighted little eyes turn towards Mum, astonished to see such incredible creatures are real.
Dad is thrilled. Surely this fulfils the trip’s ambition? Beaming, he turns around to catch her eye but she’s drowning in misery and cannot be lifted to take even this one sweet breath.
April 16, 2018 at 7:37 pm
I’m fluttering around your blog Lisa and landed here. Oh là là (as they say here) this is an extraordinary piece of writing. Terribly and beautifully sad. Have you kept it in the third person or changed it since you wrote this a couple of years ago? I loved it in any case. Inspiring!
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May 3, 2016 at 2:12 pm
A very fine piece of writing, Lisa. The third person viewpoint, I think, adds to the moving qualities of the work. These are such very painful circumstances. Sometimes it is good to give the reader some distance too – and, as you do here, a greater depth of focus is achieved.
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April 20, 2016 at 6:35 pm
I absolutely love this. Holy crap, lady. This is good! I do like a prologue such as you have here so people know it’s true but 3rd person POV does NOT detract from the pain of this beautifully written piece. 💗
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April 20, 2016 at 4:31 pm
Beautifully written, profoundly moving piece Lisa, I hope that all you’ve read here and also the feedback from the workshop yesterday helped answer some of your questions. Being able to write in this ‘disconnected’ way for this particular scene is part of the process of memoir I believe, and will help you through the harder parts so that you’ll find your way forward to completion. I loved what Irene said, and can’t add any more to that…I am so looking forward to sharing our work as the weeks go by. Let’s hope we get the answers we seek 🙂 ❤
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April 20, 2016 at 3:43 am
I think you are going to do very well in this course, my dear.
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April 19, 2016 at 8:23 am
Beautiful Lisa. I have tears welling. I think this is even more poignant as in memoir we would not know how the husband felt seeing his wife with in her torment, the wife’s struggles against both physical and mental factors and the little boy oblivious to adult emotions, enjoying the moment in the zoo. The omnipotent narrator can do all three and makes third person work well. It is not unheard of in memoir. Used particularly where the narrative to be told is still too raw to be written in the first person by the narrator or where there is such a huge disconnect between the present day ‘I’ (the narrator) and the narrated ‘I’. Probably one of the most notable is J.M. Coetzee. Another that I thought was brilliant was a book called “Bite your Tongue” which was a hybrid memoir/fiction and I plan on reviewing it next for your #MemoirReview. Written by Francesca Rendle-Short she portrays childhood with fictional characters (still to raw to write as 1st person) whilst her adulthood is memoir. This could work well with your project as you could see yourself as a fictional character undergoing the treatment whilst the facts of your treatment and the reflections on it are memoir. Probably not worth attempting at this point in your writing but an interesting thought. I’m looking forward to reading your story. The 11 week course sounds good. Wish I could join you.
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April 19, 2016 at 1:35 am
I love the work and think third person works well, I also want more. Though I do understand the previous comment about a difficulty to connect without a first person narrative.
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April 19, 2016 at 12:34 am
Weirdly I’ve been thinking about London Zoo for my A to Z postings and up pops your version. It’s a hard read and nothing lik the frivolous piece I have in mind. Maybe it’s that juxtaposition that makes it such a compelling read. I can’t imagine it being any easier or deeper or more immediate whatever the point of view, frankly. And jus because memoire is ‘customarily’ I rather than she didn’t detract from my read. Like all rules break them when it suits I say and this suits.
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April 18, 2016 at 8:30 pm
I think this is lovely. You’ve nailed it… Hard to connect to your smiling face, though…
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April 18, 2016 at 9:45 pm
Thank you 🙂 (<-gives an ironic smile)
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April 18, 2016 at 7:18 pm
Oh no I meant 3rd person makes things blah or bland and disconnects me from the emotions and perspectives and philosophy.. I tend to overthink how a character would act or speak. It’s all a painting though. You can keep touching up different areas, ultimately concluding with an entire different story or angle. I’ve mainly tried to turn personal experience into a sort of fiction. It’s a great story in my head. I think you answered my question tho. You have a great story to share. Don’t be afraid to stand in front of the collision. Let it drill you. Or in it. Or watch it. The worst is over. That’s why you are writing it. That’s why we will love it. Take a breath. … Now let it out.
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April 18, 2016 at 7:59 pm
I think we are on the same page. And I’m watching my breath 🙂
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April 18, 2016 at 8:05 pm
Good luck. You got this.
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April 18, 2016 at 4:51 pm
I dont see why it would not work. It is a memory. Another self at that, for you. I think you have to ask yourself is it too hard to write or to remember? I think it works, and went smoothly. maybe with a set up tho somewhere, or,,, let the reader figure it out – the perspective. 3rd person i always feel disconnected. Perhaps rewriting in different perspectives the same piece or excerpt will open new doors (for me). Thanks for the inspiration.
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April 18, 2016 at 6:58 pm
Thanks Elliot – you’re right of course, it will need context etc although that can be generated in a number of ways and I’m quite drawn to episodic style memoirs so imagine I might be editing my stuff a while yet to whip it into that sort of shape. I’m hoping the course I’m doing will help me clarify some of this device kind of stuff!
Good to hear that the third person view always leaves you feeling a bit disconnected – me too – I guess that’s why it was easier to write like this for me.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I have another ‘episode’ I have written about 6 times in different ways – that was less emotionally charged but a very important event. The practice of writing it over and over almost as if fictionalising it – or at least with lots of metaphor and simile – was amazing. I drew more from my memory looking at it from different angles and I learnt something about me and it.. Good luck with your writing 😀
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