W5 Prompt 4

Think about an event (or series of events) that happened to you as child which changed you or taught you a lesson.   Tell the story in a short fiction piece or a poem using vivid sensory detail, but tell it using a third person narrator.  Go beyond simply recording an important memory; turn your memory into a fully developed short story or poem using the third person.

Must you stick completely to the truth of what really happened?  Nah.  All writers are beautiful liars.  To paraphrase the poet Richard Hugo, you owe the truth of what happened very little.  You owe the truth of your feelings everything.

So, to review, write about something that really happened to you–something that taught you a lesson–but write it in the third person point of view so it sounds more like fiction rather than a personal essay.  The point?  Too often writers use the first person because it seems the easiest.  However, if we become adept at using the third person, we can discover an enormous sense of freedom because we are not limited to a small-scope “I” narrator.  Go for it!