beccaelizabeth's dreamwidth journal

That's why I like writing tight third person. You can only write what the main character senses, and there's a level of distancing so the reader doesn't automatically assume that character is being entirely truthful.

she likes it because it reminds her of summer is the bad sort of telling anyway. Much better to say something like The sun shone through the leaves, creating a patchwork of light and shadow beneath the trees. She smiled as she remembered sitting under those trees for a picnic one summer. Afterwhich she can either remember something else about summer and the trees, or her thoughts can be interrupted by something else happening.

Your course notes do sound pretty useless, though.