Yesterday I posted an analysis of several paragraphs in the book DEAD MAN’S RULE, by lawyer Rick Acker. A number of my loyal blog readers posted comments or questions, and I think it’s time to answer some of those:
Robert wrote:
My main character is mostly blind. He can see a little, but not much. The best input he gets is auditory. I have a lot of people describe what’s happening to him, but he still goes a lot by what he hears.
The problem is that this means his “Motivations” will also be mostly auditory. But I can’t seem to get away from saying “[he] heard” or “the sound of”.
For instance, here’s one motivation written different ways (he and other people are in a wagon, which is being chased):
1) He heard running feet beside the wagon.
2) Running feet were heard beside the wagon.
3) The sounds of running was heard beside the wagon.
4) People were now running beside the wagon.
Randy sez: I think the best solution is to write as if the character were not blind.
I would avoid #1 because it injects the POV character into the Motivation, and I can’t see any reason to do so.
#2 contains a passive verb construction “were heard” which should be avoided or plagues will be called down on the head of the author, or even worse, your book will not be read, or even worse, you may become the object of self-referential humor which will be read on my blog.
Ditto for #3.
#4 works fine. This is most likely the way the POV character actually experiences it. He hears them and deduces that people are running based on the sounds that impinge on his ears, much as a sighted character will see them and deduce that they are actually there, based on the light that impinges on his eyes.
Parker suggested as a solution:
Seems the auditory input must trigger an emotional or visceral experience for your character. You might play on that. Another variation for your ideas file:
“Fear pulsed hard in his veins (or head, or ears) at the pounding of feet beside the wagon.
Randy sez: It’s an excellent idea to put in emotive Reactions to the Motivation, but they must come AFTER the Motivation, not before. So you would need to show the sound of the pounding feet and THEN show us that fear pulsing through those veins. Remember that the reader has a very linear experience, because she must read the words in order. If you write the effect before the cause, then it feels “unrealistic” to the reader, who will likely not realize what’s wrong. It is not enough to use a connective such as “as” or “while” or similar to make the cause and the effect seem simultaneous. In writing, it’s a rare place where it works to say that things happen simultaneously, because they can’t be read simultaneously. So always put the explosion first and then the shock wave.
Mary asked:
In your example above when I read Alexie’s hand shot into his pocket and got the gun, I thought it meant his own pocket, not the other guy’s. Would adding a couple words to make it clear slow down the action too much?
Randy sez: This is a good point. Here is the original:
“Hurry!” a voice urged in Russian from the front seat of the car. A tall, dark-haired man jumped out of the right rear door, still holding a Makarov pistol. He shoved the weapon into his jacket and quickly searched Alexei’s coat pockets. As he knelt to frisk through Alexei’s pants pockets, Alexei’s hand suddenly grabbed his arm and held it in an iron grip. Alexei’s other hand shot into his jacket and pulled out the Makarov.
If I were writing this, I’d probably simplify this and put a paragraph break at the point where the Motivation transitions to a Reaction. This would eliminate those pesky pronoun problems:
“Hurry!” a voice urged in Russian from the front seat of the car. A tall, dark-haired man jumped out of the right rear door, still holding a Makarov pistol. He shoved the weapon into his jacket, knelt down on the frozen sidewalk, searched Alexei’s coat pockets, and then reached inside his right pants pocket.
Alexei’s right hand grabbed the assassin’s arm in an iron grip. His left shot into the man’s jacket and yanked out the Makarov.
This tightens things up a bit, and eliminates the confusion, I think.
Parker asked:
I see the MRU’s in fast paced fiction, but what about in what you termed recently “pesky literary” fiction?
It seems to me that there you might have several pages of building the motivation, and perhaps that again in showing the reaction. And this raises another question in my addled brain.
Is it reasonable to have multiple minor MRU’s within a larger one?
Randy sez: Remember that MRUs are the magic secret to “showing” rather than “telling.” A lot of literary fiction consists in “telling.” This is not a requirement of literary fiction, but literary novelists are better than normal writers and can “tell” some things a lot more grippingly than most of us can “show”. If you are a literary novelist, then “show” or “tell” as the spirit moves you. If you choose to “tell,” then of course you can’t use MRUs. If you choose to “show,” then you can.
As for having MRUs inside MRUs, I don’t see any reason to do this. An MRU is the smallest unit of conflict in a story. If you can break it down smaller, then it wasn’t an MRU to begin with.
We’ll continue next time with another analysis of the MRUs in a story.
Hi all, although I’ve been getting the ezine for a while, I’m new to following this blog. I read the article on a perfect scene just the day before MRUs were chosen as a topic. Timely!
I’m trying to get my head around this process, but a high powered action thriller is not what I’m writing. My own ‘heart breaking work of staggering genius’ is set in 1850. I’m wondering if this could be classed as an MRU:
“Maggie Ahern, step forward.”
Maggie started at the sound of her name and promptly obeyed the command. Heart pounding, she wondered what she could possibly have to do with this interruption to the sameness of their days. Maggie was conscious of towering over the women lined up behind her. The stranger tilted his top hat backwards as he walked towards her, his eyes darting from her straggly red hair to the toe poking through her shoes.
I’m thinking the dialogue is the Motivation, and her reactions follow, I hope, in order. The last line, is pretty much the beginning of the next MRU, as she then goes on to react to his scrutiny (which I’m calling the motivation).
Am I getting this, or am I really lost?
By the way, it’s also my first paragraph, and given that you’ve all been looking at those for a while, if any of you have comments along that line too, I’d be grateful for your feedback…
Thanks Randy,
You helped me see through the fog by explaining that an MRU is the SMALLEST unit of conflict. So when a series of these small units of conflict build on its predecessors to prompt a greater motivation, this exceeds the perimeters of an MRU?
Literary writers are better than “normal writers”?
So “as” and “while” may be used? He placidly read the paper while the children destroyed the house.
Thanks everyone for the help, and thanks, Randy, for hosting my question!
To summarize all the ideas:
1) Once the blindness is established, ignore it as much as possible and write naturally. (Sharon & Randy)
2) Use emotional reactions to the sounds (keeping the MRU in the correct order) (Parker & Randy)
3) Keep the experience purely sensory and leave out how he received the sensory input. (Camille)
4) Use words that evoke sounds. (Sylvia)
All great, and the solution will probably be in mixing these up to keep it fresh. This definitely gets me out of that wagon-wheel rut! 😉
Ah, good to see more on MRUs.
Karen- a few comments on your piece (I’m using this as MRU practice for myself, so bear with me 😉 ).
“Maggie Ahern, step forward.”
[Motivation; this is perfect]
Maggie started at the sound of her name and promptly obeyed the command. Heart pounding, she wondered what she could possibly have to do with this interruption to the sameness of their days.
[Reaction, but slightly out of order. Starting at a sound and heart pounding are both fast Reactions, not under conscious control. Those should both come before obeying the command, which is a conscious decision. Wondering about things is a Reaction, and is in the correct place.]
Maggie was conscious of towering over the women lined up behind her. The stranger tilted his top hat backwards as he walked towards her, his eyes darting from her straggly red hair to the toe poking through her shoes.
[I believe both of these sentences are part of a new Motivation, thus needing a new paragraph. Towering over everyone is not a Reaction, but is something outside herself that Maggie notices, and thus is a Motivation which she will React to. I’m not sure if these are better off as a single Motivation, or should be split up with a Reaction in between.]
I hope this helps!
To Robert Treskillard, compare what you are trying to do with what teachers try to do. We all learn more effectively through one sensory input than the others, but not all of us use the same sensory input. There are visual learners, auditory learners, kinetic learners, etc.
A visual learner will say things like, “I see what you mean… .” An auditory learner will say, “It sounds like you’re saying… .” A kinetic learner will say, “This just doesn’t feel right to me… .”
As an author, you can do the same thing. When you are writing motivations for your blind POV, write them with hearing adjectives, adverbs, and verbs. When you are writing motivation for all your other POVs, write them with seeing adjectives, adverbs, and verbs.
Also, make sure that your blind POV uses hearing terms when speaking. It is rare to the extreme for a blind person to speak with sighted idioms. They would never say to a frazzled co-worker, “Looks like you’ve had a tough day!”
Hope this helps.
“It seems to me that there you might have several pages of building the motivation, and perhaps that again in showing the reaction. And this raises another question in my addled brain.
“Is it reasonable to have multiple minor MRU’s within a larger one?”
It seems to me that Parker is describing a Scene/Sequel pair, or something very like that. I guess the point about minor MRUs within a larger MRU is a pretty good way of thinking about writing the perfect scene(s), as it indicates the duality of “something happens” and “character X responds”. On the small scale, this is an MRU; on the moderate scale, this is a Scene/Sequel; on the largest scale, this is a novel.
Lots of good input today.
Although I have heard of blind people who used trite expressions, like “I see,” to let others know they understand. They don’t make a big deal about it and we shouldn’t try to call excess attention to such either.
This response is to Robert. I’m totally blind. I use terms like “I see what you mean” and “You don’t look so good today”, (even though I get my input from my hearing). But, I went blind later in life (I was about 30). So, if you hero went blind later in life, then he will continue to use the same idioms he used earlier in life. If he was born blind, then this is more of a problem. It’s still prevalent in society to “not talk” about sighted subjects to blind children (as if they don’t know they’re blind). And those blind from birth have different ways of “analyzing” events than those who went blind later in life.
Randy and Loyal Blog Readers:
Thanks for your thoughtful comments on Dead Man’s Rule. I’m just getting started on another legal thriller, and I’m sure I’ll refer back to these posts more than once as I write. You had good insights on what worked, what didn’t, and why.
BTW, I confess that before I read about MRUs here, I had no idea what they were, let alone that I was creating them. I just thought I was shooting Russian mobsters.
Best,
Rick Acker
Sean, thanks so much for your comments. I had wondered about the heart beating after her obeying, but hadn’t quite summoned the confidence I needed to question it out loud…(And then there’s always the dreaded attachment to what we’ve already written!)
Thanks to all for these discussions so far!
🙂 Karen
I’m reviewing some of my scenes to see if and how I’m using MRUs, and since I seem to drive a lot of scenes with dialog, I wonder exactly how speech fits in. When the POV character speaks, is that always reaction? It I’m right then anyone else speaking would be motivation. Is that right?
I try to avoid unadorned dialog tags, so I do have physical and mental reactions as well as active motivations interspersed with the dialog so the reader can tell who’s speaking, but I’m not sure if I’m actually building MRUs when I have dialog-driven scenes. I think I get it when it comes to action, but not every seen can be action–at least I can’t seem to write that way.
Here’s an example excerpted from one of my scenes (If I’m right, this is a series of short dialog MRUs followed by a non-dialog MRUs.):
“Don’t take it to heart, girl.” The old midwife followed Gwyn out into the warm night air. “You did nothing wrong to cause the babe to die. He was already dead ere you arrived, it was just a matter of the getting him out.”
“I know that in my head, Mistress Bethan.” Gwyn swallowed a sob, “but it will take some convincing to make my heart understand.”
The old midwife laid a grizzled hand on her shoulder. “It often happens so, child. You must harden your heart to it or you can ne’er do this job.”
Tears welled in Gwyn’s eyes, but she hastily wiped them away with the back of her hand. “I don’t know if I can.”
They walked in silence on a road made visible by a half moon overhead, its silvery light illuminating the village’s empty sheep folds. It was eerily still with all the sheep up on the high meadows where the grass was lusher and the air cooler. Behind them, the first heavy strokes of a hammer broke the stillness of the night. Deryn’s husband would work off his grief on the coffin for his wee son.
Gwyn’s eyes teared again despite her attempts to keep them dry.
Bruce,
The different learning styles is an interesting way to view this area. Definitely worth keeping in mind as I edit to make sure his speech fits.
I think I need to make a list of all the “hearing” verbs/adverbs/adjectives I can think of.
Thanks,
-Robert