Writing Prompt Using David Copperfield
David Copperfield by Charles Dickens also opens with the narrator speaking in the first person. Unlike the others, however, this time he promises a story that points to the future. It holds an aspiration to be a hero, at least for his own life. His simple wish is one most readers will identify with.
At the same time there is something off. The invitation to judge is not as intimate as other first person beginnings that seem to talk directly to the reader. Instead it hands over his story to the reader to be the one to judge him in the end. There is something distant, something perhaps broken in that verbal shrug. He speaks of wanting to be a hero and yet doesn’t seem to believe he can measure up.
To get your imagination working along these lines, think of opposite ways people might judge a person for the same action. Come up with 5 pairs and put them in a sentence.
- Maybe you’ll think I was crazy last summer, or maybe you’ll think I was smart; I can’t control that.
- Some called me a thug and some called me a victim; either way I survived.
- I will show you how one person can be an honest liar while another can be a…
