The Third Man

Last week I was applying for a writing position (freelance) for an on-line publication.
It was easy-breezy: enter your email, copy/paste your resume (attach your resume?!? whatever, one of these), give two writing samples....

I stopped.
Right there and then.

It was not because I didn’t have anything to submit. Even though I wrote much more in French than in English I do have samples. Nothing stellar, or serious or really mind-blowing but that’s not the point, is it? I was not up for a Pulitzer Prize nomination.

I could get a good article or two out of my blog, to begin with. Or even a solid Yelp review. I was Review Of The Day five times already, that must mean that I am not too shabby of a writer, right? Or not. Who knows? Word is that these are computer generated anyway, and honestly I am not sure to be ready to have my prose judged by some random machine which only recognizes its A from its B because of their different binary code. Not just yet.

I stopped the movement of my fingers on the keyboard because right below the line ‘First Writing Sample’ were written in italics the following words: ‘Third person articles only’.

Wha-aaaat?!?!?

Seriously?!?!
I was blown away, dumbfounded, flabbergasted, thunderstruck.

Just.

Speech.

Less.

Especially since the job in question consisted in writing opinion pieces on gossip and other women-related news.

Their words. Not mine.

Now that I think about it, a publication shallow enough to link that shamelessly ‘gossip’ and ‘women’ is probably not worth writing for.

But still.

In a world where everyone seems to have a compulsion need to let the whole world know about their every move, feeling, and thought – I am eating sushi/I believe that X’s dress was ab-so-lu-te-ly fabulous at the Oscars the other night/I am a fan of ‘brushing your teeth under the shower while singing ‘My Way’ – this was shocking news indeed

Third person articles.

Huh.

In French grammar the ‘il’ or third person, is labeled as the ‘non-person’ (for those of you perverted enough to be interested in syntax and overall linguistics, Emile Benveniste is the guy to blame behind all this. Students all over the country suffer countless hours in his hands. RIP, Emile). I am convinced that most writers-to-be out there start their first line with ‘I’ not ‘he’ or ‘she’. And it’s only natural. People want to talk about themselves, not for narcissist reasons (not always) but only because they are their best-known subject. Writing is a hard enough process; one doesn’t want to waste one’s precious time trying to think about WHAT to write about. Right? Right. So one usually digs into oneself and let it all out. Or just some of it; sometimes it is more than enough. No crazy stream of consciousness. Just a nice, controlled, entertaining (touching, boring, funny – insert your adjective here) flow of reflections and emotions put into words to fulfill a need not always simple to explain. Why do we write? That is an entire different story.

As I was recovering from my initial surprise I was wondering who these people were. Who is writing third person articles?

I did, actually. 3 of them about the expression of melancholy in the work of a French 17^th century author (Tristan L’Hermite. RIP to you as well, Tristan); 2 others on French Canadian theater. Academic publications fit the bill. News reports too, obviously Otherwise? I cannot really think of any article where the author doesn’t intervene at some point to say ‘I’. Sure, I might be totally oblivious to a world of ‘he’ papers. If so, please let me know. But if I am right indeed my question is: who is this publication looking for?

Not for me, at least. I blog and review and I like my ‘I’. And so do you.

I am happy with that.