Writing an Inanimate Point of View
There are many storytellers around in need of a voice. It's a matter of POV.
Twisted and curled on the side, they keep pushing and shoving me aside. I scratched one of them. It was unintentional. He should have ducked like the rest of them. Once I snagged away a fleece hat from a young lady, and she didn’t even notice. I am sure she needed it that night when the California night arrived with a cold vengeance. So far, I have counted 40 in this batch, just a few people short from the last batch that passed through 30 mins ago. There are so many batches every day. I keep counting because what else am I good for. Mangled and broken with my limbs hanging out, I can’t stop them like I was made to do. I once used to be a strong barbed wire fence at the end of the southern border with Mexico. My job was to stop people from sneaking through. But now, I am just an ignored object that silently counts and I have counted 3000 migrants this week alone.
The above short story was inspired by the recent 60 minutes report of a growing migrant crisis at the New Mexico border. An ignored gap at the end of the border fence is making it is easy for illegal Chinese migrants to enter The United States.
Fiction or non-fiction, there are perspectives and vantage points to choose from in our storytelling. These are usually human POVs because that’s how we think, or how we see it. What if they don't have to be always all human?
A disease can narrate what it’s doing to the person who is suffering from it. A house can narrate a gruesome murder that took place in it. A cup of coffee can share the conversation that took place around it. It’s a creative way of looking at narration.
Many authors use this technique. But as readers, we rarely notice it, especially when the storytelling is so powerful the wee don’t stop to think about the storyteller.
What if an inanimate object could speak? What would it say?
Try it in your next piece, whatever that may be. I assure you that it will get your creative juices flowing, as it did for me.
Have fun with it.
This is very interesting to me because the very first story I ever remember writing as a child was from this POV.
I wrote about the life of a dime, from the dime's perspective. How it travels in pockets, occasionally goes through the wash, sits in cash registers waiting on a new owner, etc. 😁 I will never forget that story because my teacher made me stand in front of the classroom reading it out loud.