Potato is yum

This morning sucked. It was snowing with 30+ mile per hour winds. I walked through it for twenty minutes. I even had to walk into the snow meaning it slapped my face and stung. It sucked. However, it made me think. As a writer, I like to write a lot of stuff I have experienced. So that could be from minor injuries to personal anecdotes to annoying grievances with daily life such as this. I write a story with a male lead and a close best friend because that’s what I’m used to. I know that feeling so that’s what I’d be best at writing? Right?

From the wind and snow this morning I realized this was a pretty narrow view. Me experiencing the wind and snow this morning only really was concerned about the interaction between me and my suffering and the environment. A third person observer of me walking to class this morning would have noticed a struggling student barely standing upright slipping his way across treacherous roads to get to class.

Now you may say “there’s no difference!” And you would be kind of right. Both describe my trip to class this morning. What’s different is the framing. I know a lot of people will now groan at this but framing matters a lot. In fact, debate has an entire topic just about winning framing because without a frame you can’t have a picture. When I frame my morning walk from the point of view of me in first person, the main focus is to push through the snow. The perseverance. The human aspect of the journey. However, this is just one way of framing the trip to class.

If I frame my morning walk from a third person perspective, I see all the giant blocks of metal sliding across the road and barely stopping in time at the stop lights for me to pass. The giant patches of ice that I barely miss as I walk across the street. The other students next to me who also struggle through the snow with me. It goes from an individual feat of perseverance and human endurance to a scene that makes me seem small. Seem lucky. Seem extraordinarily vulnerable. Just one student in a sea.

After thinking about it, I think I’m gonna need to start trying to write things from this higher perspective. It would be quite helpful. As a first attempt at this, I’m going to try and write my royal road contest submission with this in mind. Let’s see if it works out.

Oh, and the snow really sucked. Sometimes I hate this city.