Critiquing Lynda #2

In my last post, I first congratulated one of my loyal blog readers, Christina Berry, on the sale of her first novel. I invited her to leave a comment here if she wanted to share details (since I wasn’t quite sure how far along in the process the sale was). Christina left this comment:

I’m the not-so-mysterious “CB” and was thrilled to finally spill the beans about Moody contracting Undiscovered. It’s been a contract more than a month in the making, and remaining quiet ranks right up there with waterboarding for me.

I’ll be blogging about the particulars for the next week or so, but Moody was not the first house to say they had an offer on the way. However, they were the first to actually submit one to my agent and to negotiate a few tiny things. I will also be sharing something I asked my agent to do that will shock a few people.

I could go on and on, so I’ll close with a few intriguing notes: the title has already been changed–before the contract was signed, the slated release date is Sept. ‘09, and Randy’s statement of support was one of the most meaningful ones I read today!

Randy sez: You can read more details on Christina’s blog at AshBerryLane.net. Christina also has some projects she’s working on with her mother, Sherrie Ashcraft–hence the “AshBerry Lane” URL.

I note that Christina and Sherrie have a link to a recent novel, Tuesday Night At The Blue Moon, by Debbie Fuller Thomas. I had the fun of mentoring Debbie a few years ago in a mentoring clinic at a writing conference, and I immediately introduced her to a couple of agents because I knew she was going to be something special. Her writing is terrific.

Getting back to our last post, we had a look at a segment of writing posted by Lynda. I challenged my loyal blog readers to critique the segment first, because I think it’s a good exercise for you all. I know it’s good exercise for me, and I most always learn something when I critique something here.

To review, here is Lynda’s submission:

Rumbles roused Alejandro to half-consciousness. Overhead a succession of sky shattering cracks increased in intensity, each answered by waning reverberations. Something cold splattered against the back of his neck. His eyes flew open, and he stared into dank soil that emitted the moldy stink of decaying leaves. More droplets struck his neck, bled down, and seeped into the depression that cradled his face. He gathered his strength and rolled onto his back.

Excruciating pain shot through his arm. He screamed, clutched a wound, and writhed. The agony decreased by degrees to a fiery throb that radiated into his shoulder. He wiped his eyes and stared into the underside of a shrub that dripped with moisture.

Where was he? He reached up and parted some twigs. The jungle?

The forest around him steamed, producing an earthy cloud. Its heaviness hindered his breath and dimmed the light.

It would storm soon. He had to find shelter. Tangles of Passion Vines reached the forest floor. He grabbed a fist full, hoisted himself to a sitting position, and scanned the area. No outcrops. No hollow logs. His gaze went to a Giant Kapok that towered above adjacent trees. It would have to do. With his good arm, he dragged himself over the thickly mulched ground and hid amid the tree’s buttress folds. The jungle exploded with light. A crash followed. Then like the opening of a spillway, a torrent poured through the rainforest canopy.

He rested his head against the bryophyte encrusted bark. What happened? He’d been in his office at the university. How did he get here? And, what happened to his arm? Through the deluge, he studied the wind ravaged surroundings. Nothing seemed familiar. His temples pulsed with concentration. There had been soldiers. Running. Rifle fire. Pain. Terrible pain. He closed his eyes. The nursery appeared on the inside of his eyelids. And, the bloody bodies of Elena and their baby. Anguish crushed his heart, dwarfing the pain in his arm. His fault. Everything was his fault. He grabbed his face and sobbed, “Perdóname, Señor, Perdóname.”

Here is my analysis of the passage:

First, I think the setting is strong, the descriptions are vivid, and we have a character in some danger. It’s hard to tell just how much danger, because the real danger is experienced as backstory. We don’t know for certain whether Alejandro is now still in danger, though it seems very likely. However, the current story feels a bit out of focus. I don’t quite know what Alejandro wants right now, other than that he would presumably like to rewind the clock to before the soldiers came. Presumably, that goal will become clear shortly, so we won’t worry too much about it here.

Second, if this is the very beginning of the story, then I would suggest that a stronger beginning might be just before the soldiers arrived at his office at the university. Then we could live that bit in real-time, rather than seeing it in narrative summary here as backstory. But it may be that in Lynda’s novel, she’s already shown that. Lynda, can you comment on that?

A number of you made guesses at the number of Motivations and Reactions in this passage. Most of your guesses were different, and they ranged from 5+5 to 13+13. My own best guess is 8 Motivations and 8 Reactions, but I’m not really certain.

I think that my feeling of fuzziness in this passage is due to the lack of clarity in the MRUs. Here is how I broke out the Motivations and Reactions:

Paragraph 1: 3 M + 3 R
Paragraph 2: 2 M + 2 R
Paragraph 3: Continuation of the last R from previous paragraph
Paragraph 4: 1 M
Paragraph 5: 2 M + 2 R
Paragraph 6: 1 R

Might I suggest that the passage should be shuffled around a little to combine some of the one-sentence Motivations into larger units and some of the one-sentence Reactions into larger units? Also, I would recommend that the Motivations and Reactions be broken out into their own paragraphs.

Here is what I have in mind, in which I change almost no words but just shuffle things around a bit and delete a couple of sentences near the end. The first paragraph is a single sentence, part Motivation and part Reaction. But all other paragraphs are either all Motivation or all Reaction. It is now easy to count 7 Motivations and 7 Reactions (counting one of each in that first paragraph):

Rumbles roused Alejandro to half-consciousness.

Overhead a succession of sky shattering cracks increased in intensity, each answered by waning reverberations. Something cold splattered against the back of his neck. More droplets struck his neck, bled down, and seeped into the depression that cradled his face.

His eyes flew open, and he stared into dank soil that emitted the moldy stink of decaying leaves. He gathered his strength and rolled onto his back.

Excruciating pain shot through his arm.

He screamed, clutched a wound, and writhed.

The agony decreased by degrees to a fiery throb that radiated into his shoulder.

He wiped his eyes and stared into the underside of a shrub that dripped with moisture. Where was he? He reached up and parted some twigs. The jungle?

The forest around him steamed, producing an earthy cloud. Its heaviness hindered his breath and dimmed the light. Tangles of Passion Vines reached the forest floor.

It would storm soon. He had to find shelter. He grabbed a fist full of the vines, hoisted himself to a sitting position, and scanned the area.

No outcrops. No hollow logs. A Giant Kapok towered above adjacent trees.

It would have to do. With his good arm, he dragged himself over the thickly mulched ground and hid amid the tree’s buttress folds.

The jungle exploded with light. A crash followed. Then like the opening of a spillway, a torrent poured through the rainforest canopy.

He rested his head against the bryophyte encrusted bark. What happened? He’d been in his office at the university. How did he get here? And, what happened to his arm?

His temples pulsed with concentration. There had been soldiers. Running. Rifle fire. Pain. Terrible pain. He closed his eyes. The nursery appeared on the inside of his eyelids. And, the bloody bodies of Elena and their baby. Anguish crushed his heart, dwarfing the pain in his arm. His fault. Everything was his fault. He grabbed his face and sobbed, “Perdóname, Señor, Perdóname.”

What do you think? Is it clearer? Does the scene feel a little more focused?

Let me be clear that there is never just one right answer in writing fiction. There are a million good answers and a thousand extraordinary ones. So I am always cautious about changing a writer’s words or style. I prefer to just buff up a writer’s work so their individuality remains. It would be a dull world if everyone wrote like me — or like anyone else for that matter.