Perspective

I have these two pictures on my desktop to remind me of the importance of perspective. I took them this summer on an afternoon outing to Mission San Antonio. It is probably evident that I am not a stellar photographer, but when I looked at these later in the evening, I realized how these would help me, the visual person I am, with the concept of perspective.

In narration, not only are you writing in first or third person, you also have a certain distance and that distance dictates the perspective. Are you close, so that the narrator can only see what the character sees? Are you farther away and able to see multiple sides to a situation? I have trouble with this sometimes because I know how the story goes. The character may not. These pictures give me an all important visual.

I think it's important to understand the role of perspective in life also. I've gotten heavy doses of this in my work life, luckily not so much in my later personal life.

Most of what I write has something to do with perspective. Its discovery, how it changes you, how someone else's perception influences yours. It is the thing about humans that interests me the most, and it is enough of a broad concept that I can have millions of words to write about it. Well, maybe not millions. Hundreds of thousands? Sure.

One of the things that lets me have some optimism for writing happens to be the knowledge that my perspective is unique. I just have to be good enough at writing for my uniqueness to be interesting. Aha, that is the challenge. To be interesting.

Peace,

Jo Taylor