Muse Guide

Writer's tutorial entry; the identity of your POV

The identity of your POV 
This is simply talking about the narrator in basic terms. The POV is often the perspective of the narrator or sometimes just the writer. It is the writer’s work to attribute an identity to the narrator and also his perspective. The identity of a narrator can be of two types based on location. 
Within a story narrator: this is used in stories where the protagonists or someone else of notable importance narrates the story. More often, the first POV is best suited for this narration type because you can’t be there within a story and yet regard yourself as a he, or not even give your emotions adequate recognition. What happens eventually is in a longer piece for example, to stick to one “within the story POV” you will need to use multiple identities because there is hardly anyone in your novel that would be everywhere at the same time, especially if your story entails multiple plots and subplots. However another solution can yet be made and that is using multiple POV. Where the within the story narrator uses the first POV where he is involved and uses the third POV where he is not. However such a method can only be used in past tense narration. 
The outside the story narrator, this identity involves narrators that are not present in the story. This category are quite delicate because they do have subcategories. The outside the story narration is most suited for the third person narration than third person. The two sub-category under this is: 
The human narrator:- This narrators takes the form of an human, who is reporting a story that does not involve him. Let’s take for example I wish to tell the story of my best friend. I am human and will tell the story best to my knowledge and based on my judgement. I -as a human narrator- am meant to have limited knowledge as regard the story, though my judgement can be fully incorporated into the story, however I should not over use it as the readers might start to lose interest in a story if they feel the narrator is making too much assumptions and judgements. True life stories are often in this form, if the owner of the story relayed it to someone and the same person decided to relay it back, it becomes a human narrator and can only and always be written in third person perspective, except the writer decided to write in ghost mode for the owner of the real story hence he will write in the first POV hence the real owner of the story can claim the authorship of the state. However in fiction the case is different, there is no strict guideline and a writer might decide to make a tough choice of POV and give him a strange Identity. However it is the second sub-category that I will choose that most writers choose to use, simply because of it limitless ability to defend its knowledge of the story. 
Sovereign narrator:- This narrator often assume the position of some super human being with a sovereign knowledge about a story. Let’s assume the identity of our narrator is that of a dead spirit telling a story about when he was alive. The dead spirit would have hidden knowledge about the story that an ordinary human being wouldn’t. More often than not, a writer would not define his narrator identity. However our intuition would always point us to the direction of the identity of the narrator. In the number one category above, the writer cannot hide and would not hide the identity of a POV except he want to create a special effect of mystery. If not, a narrator that is also present in expected to be public and never hidden in anyways. 
This though is just my own personal classification and this classification helps me beyond, extensive or confusing options. I tend to understand the fact that a supreme narrator if revealed can create a necessary tension and mystery in a novel. In the coming instalment, I will talk about how to fully exploit the dynamic world of POV in your creative writings. Thank you very much for reading. 
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Writer's tutorial entry; the identity of your POV

The identity of your POV This is simply talking about the narrator in basic terms. The POV is often the perspective of the narrator or some...

Writer's tutorial entry; The power of the POVs

You and your POVs 
POVs are very important in creative writing, if you are already a creative writer you will be quite familiar with them. POVs are our point of views, as we all know, we have three point of view and this include the first POV, the Second POV and the third POV. Sometimes our choice of POV can actually influence the mood of any creative prose. Even sometimes multiple POV’s are essential to some pieces, essentially the longer creative proses like novels and novella. Of course multiple POVs is a rare occurrence in short stories and novelette. This is because, the primary essence of multiple POVs is mostly not available in this shorter pieces. I know you will begin to wonder why such essence is missing in such pieces. The reason behind this is the fact that most of the shorter pieces lack the complexities of multiple plots and subplots. When there exists multiple plots we often discover that multiple POVs might be needed especially because our POVs identity might seem human. In other to avoid complexity I need to break down this piece into three parts. The first part would involve weighing the strength and weaknesses of individual POVs and stressing how they impact the mood of your piece. The second part would be on the Identity of our POVs and how they differ across the three POVs. The third part would be about how we can maximize the potential of these POVs in our creative pieces especially longer pieces that needed multiple POVs. It would also further describe how the POVs can create special effects in our creative pieces. 
The first POV: this POV is the perspective of the writer in the first person pronoun, it is denoted with the usage of the “I” pronoun. This POV is having the special ability of creating a sense of adventure and immediacy in such piece it is used in. This POV is often used when a dominant protagonists is used in the piece. The protagonist would be the one telling us this story in his own point of view. This POV has the special strength of pin point emotional effect in pieces. A first POV creates this impression based on the fact that no one knows about ones feeling better than oneself. As such the emotional stability and status of the protagonist as relating to the plot is extensively delved into by the first POV. Hence certain story plots that involves emotional conflicts would have been narrated quite more impressively with the first POV than with the others. Also the first POV brings the reader much more closely to the story and gives them a sense of following the event than the full sense of distance- like a form of reportage- that the third POV gives. However the weakness of the first POV is the limitation of thoughts and ideas, especially since the readers are restricted to just the perspective of the writer. A first person POV creates a sensation which is oriented towards the narrator’s only and since there is just his thoughts, his believes and the immediacy in his narration, his judgement could sometimes be wrong, or he could be selfish in other ways. Hence he could absolutely not be trusted and hence be found wanting in some ways. 
The second POV is quite similar to the first as it even bring the reader much more closely to the story. However it is quite unrealistic to use this perspective throughout a story. The reason for this is the fact that guessing reader’s thoughts, opinions and feelings about key subjects would be of essential virtue in this POV and is a difficult task. Even if you’d be willing to gamble with them, you will easily lose the interests of the reader so far they start realising unrealistic sense of judgements attributed to them from your part. The second POV uses more of the ‘you’ pronoun. However I pronoun is often used too, but in combination with we and the ‘you’ pronoun too. The highlight of the second POV is the creation of a special effect which makes you feel like you are addressing the reader’s directly. Take the following excerpt for example. 
“I had already passed through the cave towards the light that shone from the eastern part, do you really think I am saved? Do you believe it is my way out? I believe we should go for it then, when I am saved we shall hold a party back at my house.” 
The second POV weakness is its vague sensation of prediction and lack of precision as you can’t strike precision with guessing readers perception on your story. 
The third POV is the easiest POV as it is a natural form of reportage as it gives room for a proper review of details before the story telling. Hence it is often written in past tense and with a third person pronoun like he or she. The third POV is easy to use and it often creates a sovereign identity. I will talk more about identity in POV in the next instalment. The third POV will essentially give a natural story telling flow and ability but would distant the readers from the story. 
Next I will be talking about identity in POV. Thanks for reading. 
Abd-afeez Abd-hamid
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Writer's tutorial entry; The power of the POVs

You and your POVs POVs are very important in creative writing, if you are already a creative writer you will be quite familiar with them. P...

Thesaurus entry; the raid

"Jump Hadiza, Wayanma will be proud," The vibrant voice of Haruna sternly pleaded. 
He stood from his chair and violently stepped backward turning suddenly to face the on rushing oriza. 
"You cannot ask her to jump, it doesn't feel right." A restless Haruna gave her a stern look. 
"How dare you question my authority, Audu is no more here, same as Wayanma and the rest. How would they have varnished if not for the failures of all of us and the lack of service of a few like her. She is to be blamed for Wayanma disappearance, she must redeem herself." 
"You should at least pity h..." 
"Haruna, Oriza, it's enough, I will jump." Hadiza wouldn't wait for their reply, she rapidly ascended the cliff and with a daring effort she leaped off it, but she missed the platform. She rammed into the under-log of the platform. She slid through its muslin floor and then she lost control, leading to her fall. The fall always being the result of failed attempts, the show of weakness. 
Everybody watched in horror as she fell off view and heard as she screamed off in horror. Oriza razed off towards Haruna. 
"You think Wayanma will forgive you for this if he ever returns, or his spirit if he fail to return. You think, now that you have the power you can abuse it, Or get drunk or mad over it? You just..." 
"Shut your mouth and listen, she decided her fate not me. I didn't force her to jump. I only told her that honour begot she does. May the gods bless her soul. She at least died in honour; unlike the lot of us cowards that stand alive." 
"Tell that to the kids she left behind. Audu is not yet dead and so I remain the women’s leader. I shall protect them from your irrational rulings." 
"Why are you two rumbling over a mere misfortune, the deed is done, how do we move forward?" The woman and man turn to look at the standing Abdulahi who just spoke. 
They both sat back on their seat, "Abdullahi, I need you to come with me, let's work out a plan. I have a feeling they will return, we must be ready. Oriza, prepare the stronger women for our return. The two men stepped into the elders' hurt. 
After a couple of hours the men returned, they were about briefing their men of their plan when they heard noises. From the corner in front of them appeared the rogues from the mad clan again. "They are back for the rest of us, fight we must, gather your weapons." As soon as Abdullahi shouted the command everybody rose to their feet. Even supposed leaders were trembling, the scare of the on rushing madness was destabilising enough. Soon the men returned with all sort of steel weapons, axes, cutlasses, swords and other steel edges. They clashed with the approaching men, blood for blood, and strength for strength. Soon the mad clan started gaining ground as Haruna's men began to fall. They started retreating seeking to seek refuge in the gloomy belly of Daura forest. However, they were startled when the mad clan stopped attacking, they started retreating and from the cliff side came screams of horror, and Hadiza was standing there with a league of others, indignant, vicious, and effectively spilling blood. 
"The gods favour us", she screamed as they slash through the retreating clowns that attacked them." 
They pursued, pressed and ensured they retrieve their men.
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Thesaurus entry; the raid

"Jump Hadiza, Wayanma will be proud," The vibrant voice of Haruna sternly pleaded. He stood from his chair and violently stepped ...

Poets corner entry; dusk and dawn upon a young desert

A barren prairie took the ultimate journey and left no seed. 
It carcass gazed upon a bare firmament- souless still. 
Its regret upon its spirit, a beauty now forfeited. 
Lush greenness faded amply into a brownish spree. 
Nature is now here, rooted with it's eerie blessing. 
The holy twin-moments visits in simultaneous spree, 
With cloaks and skins of gloomy tints yet of faded glints. 
Folklores preached, tales cursed still, that the gods freaked. 
Watching with hollow eyes a transition of ugly wits. 
Folklores words sounded right, tagging the gods as sick. 
A realm of darkness and that of sun-lit brightness. 
They are the kingdom of the moments. 
One time we shall close our eyes, glad that a moment is here. 
That he shall bless us with a transformed era. 
But many the times had we open our eyes into a familiar expanse. 
A cinnamon expanse that neither darkness nor brightness beautify. 
The moments only brought hopes, dragging them to a peak of height. 
Only had we open our eyes to see black made from brown. 
Or had we  gazed upon brown made from black. 
We'd wish for the firmament's mercy for some tears of joy. 
Yet it laid wasted, azure, with bright bareness. 
We summoned on the gods to please give her her spirit. 
The prairie we once cherished is now our misery. 
But always had we hold her memories in high spirits. 
Maybe one day she shall gain her spirit. 
And dusk and dawn upon this great land. 
Shall be moments to expect some new great forms.
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Poets corner entry; dusk and dawn upon a young desert

A barren prairie took the ultimate journey and left no seed. It carcass gazed upon a bare firmament- souless still. Its regret upon its sp...

Playing guitar better

When you first start playing guitar, you learn that there is a great number of skills and techniques you need to practice to reach your goals. As months and years go by and you practice these elements, you think you are making progress in your guitar playing yet you continue to freeze up when improvising, recording, or playing for others. Worst of all, “learning more things” doesn't seem to fix the problem - you continue to freeze up and make mistakes while playing guitar “when it really counts”. So why is it that your playing doesn't seem to be getting better despite the efforts you put into practicing guitar? The answer is that you are not able to play guitar fluently. What does this mean? It means that, while you may know many things about playing guitar, you are not able to combine and use these elements easily in your guitar playing. 
The biggest reason this problem happens is because most guitar players practice something just to get it right ONCE and then they think they’re done, and want to move on and learn something new. This kills your ability to integrate and use all of your guitar skills fluently, which in turn kills your chances to become a great guitarist. This is similar to a student taking a test at school. Many students try to simply pass the test and they don’t try to actually learn the material. While they may end up passing, they forget everything as soon as the test is over. Don’t be the student whose only goal is to “pass”. Until you learn how to practice guitar effectively, you will never be able to master all aspects of your guitar playing.2 Types Of Guitar Players Who Almost Never Become Great Guitarists who most often fail to reach their goals (despite having the potential to do so) often fall into 2 groups. Guitarists in the first group are not concerned with mastering anything - they only want to learn new things all the time. Having this mind set holds back your guitar playing due to lack of integration of your musical skills (more on this below). Guitarists in the second group are “perfectionists”- they focus on absolute mastery of every individual element of their guitar playing and are afraid to move on to practice something else until the previous item has been mastered. Fact is, you CANNOT master any musical skill in isolation (I explain why in this video about the best way to learn guitar). If you try doing this, at best you will only end up with pieces of musical knowledge that you can’t truly use. Most likely you will give up out of frustration when you realize how much time you are spending trying to master things in isolation (and never getting anywhere).Now that you know what does NOT work, here is the process of practicing that ALL great guitar players go through on their way to true musical mastery of any new skill: 
1.  Begin learning the new skill in isolation to learn it on a basic level, without worrying about application or fluency yet. Most guitar players do this, but they end up spending too much of their practice time on this step and never do the following steps. 
2.  Practice applying the skill you learned in step 1. To practice this, you need to recreate a real-life musical scenario. For example: after you learn a new arpeggio shape, apply it in soloing over backing tracks- creating many guitar phrases that include this new arpeggio. 
3.  Integrate this new skill into all the other aspects of your guitar playing. This is the biggest thing that will make or break your guitar playing fluency. You can work on integration by focusing on several skills at a time and practicing them together. There are hundreds of ways you can do this. For example: ascend an arpeggio using sweep picking and come back down through a scale sequence, or find 10-20 different ways to play the same arpeggio on guitar (integrating the arpeggio with your fret board visualization skills) or add other notes to the arpeggio to achieve a new sound. Other examples of integration could include combining rhythm guitar with lead guitar phrases, or combining string skipping and 2hand tapping, while soloing over a chord progression that changes keys. The possibilities are endless…No matter your overall skill level as a guitarist, you MUST practice integrating your skills together to truly reach your musical potential. Lack of integration is one of the most common problems that guitarists at intermediate level and above suffer from and is one of the most important areas I work on with my online guitar students to help them become awesome musicians quickly. 
4.  Review and refine your new skill. This means that you go back to step 1 and again practice your new skill in isolation, having acquired deeper understanding of what elements of the skill still need to be improved (from applying and integrating it in steps 2 and 3). Then move on to applying the skill in more new contexts and integrating it with other skills/techniques until you are back to step 4 - review and refine. Going through this cycle will help you make giant leaps towards guitar playing fluency. WARNING: you must avoid falling into the “perfectionist” trap of staying at each step for too long. You must also avoid skipping some of the phases just to learn more new things on a surface level that you never truly master. Instead, you should:*.Rotate your exercises when you practice guitar, so that different aspects of your guitar playing are in different phases of mastery at any given time. This will keep your rate of progress very high. To do this right, you need to have the very best and most efficient guitar practice schedules customized specifically for you.*.Work with a master guitar teacher who knows how to pace the flow of new content (so that you never get stuck trying to master any one thing for too long) and who also doesn’t constantly bombard you with new material. *.Understand that getting better at guitar is not a linear process. Instead, your guitar playing fluency is a by-product of the overlap in the 4 areas of guitar playing mastery (isolation practice, application, integration and review). When there is little/no overlap in the 4 areas of musical mastery (as is the case for most guitarists), your level of guitar playing fluency will be minimal - with a huge amount of potential left untapped. Observe the diagram below: Your goal is to maximize the overlap between the 4 areas in the diagram above, so they all reinforce each other and make it possible for you to achieve the highest levels of guitar playing fluency possible. Like this: Now that you know how and why to focus on fluency of your guitar playing, take a few minutes to assess how close you currently are to reaching your musical goals. 
This article is courtesy Tom Hess 

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Playing guitar better

When you first start playing guitar, you learn that there is a great number of skills and techniques you need to practice to reach your goal...

Poet's corner entry: unwritten

Inks of nothingness upon a paper, 
Several minds yelled in whispers. 
I was mistaken for mockery forged in absolute silence. 
Never to be heard, lost to the existence called knowledge. 
This ribbon is black in this darkness. 
It dangles below a simple thread. 
A mysterious veil is ushered into the atmosphere, 
Human sight became useless, mother light just left. 
And we wait unto the procurement of a pronouncement, 
From the mouth of a clueless, 
Our orator with spiritual blindness. 
Ours is not a story, 
We are ordained victims, 
Preached to in sparkling lies and deceits, 
The fake priests read scriptures of devilish pages, 
And we listened, twitching our ears in unison. 
Could lies form music? 
Wondrous is that insanity, 
Which our ears got webbed in. 
Seeming like it's got a vibrant fantasy, 
Where dreams got brimmed with reality, 
Spilling a fluid of fulfilment, 
That moisten the ugly faces of waiting enemies. 
I seek words of wisdom, 
To tell me that, which lurks beyond sight. 
I fantasize colourful insights, 
Realms of fairy delights, 
With frenzy dusts of blazing tail lights. 
Pictures that grew feet of glue, 
Seek my heart to stick each foot. 
Into an hole that fancy beauty. 
And many a hole lay barren, 
Many feet found their foundations. 
Yet, a man will never revel satisfaction, 
Until its path is upon the end of the road. 
Always seeking supernatural, 
To be a tenant in its mansion of mystery. 
The universe might be vast, 
With endless shine and more darkness. 
Little is that known to science, 
There is limit to knowledge, 
Their is always that endpoint of nothingness, 
Much has been written, 
Yet; 
much more remains unwritten.
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Poet's corner entry: unwritten

Inks of nothingness upon a paper, Several minds yelled in whispers. I was mistaken for mockery forged in absolute silence. Never to be he...