Critiquing Mark

In recent weeks, I’ve been critiquing selections of novels posted by my loyal blog readers. Today will be the last of these for a while. I think it’s time to move on to something new in 2009, and I have some plans for that.

Today, we’ll look at six paragraphs submitted by Mark Goodyear, who was in my mentoring group last spring at the Mount Hermon conference:

Here’s something from a revision I’ve been working on. I’m especially interested in how MRUs work when the motivations and reactions occur through dialog.

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“I haven’t been to Decoration since my parents died, Odysseus,” John said.

Odysseus was John’s dog, and John was drunk.

“Every year now, for seven years, I drag out this cheap tent,” he motioned to the wad of polyester flapping in the bed of his truck. “And I tell myself, ‘This year.’ This year I’m going to Decoration.”

The dog was a mottled black and white mutt. Medium-sized, athletic, and just big enough to make a person grunt when she sat on you. She thought she was a lapdog, but she wasn’t dumb. For instance, she knew better than to sit on her owner when he was driving in the middle of the night on a country road.

“I probably shouldn’t be so hard on myself, right? Crying about my parents every year same time. Promising myself this year I’ll get over it. This year I’ll go out to the cemetery like we always did.”

John took a curve too fast, and the tires squealed. Odysseus whimpered on the passenger’s seat and trembled slightly like dogs do sometimes when they are scared or cold or nervous.

Randy sez: This is near the beginning of Mark’s very promising zombie novel. John and and his dog get killed early on in the story and become zombies, doomed to roam the earth until . . .

No, I won’t tell any more. What I’ve said so far would be the first sentence of the back cover copy for the novel, so I haven’t given away anything.

I’m going to guess that this is the new opening for the novel. It’s a pretty solid opening. Remember that at the very beginning of a novel, the author often needs to “tell” more and “show” less than he would once the novel is rolling. The question is always, “How much should you show and how much should you tell?” As we saw a couple of months ago, JK Rowling opted to start out with a full page of “telling” in Book 1 of her Harry Potter series. She seems to have done all right. 🙂

My own rule of thumb is to do as little telling as possible, but no less. Let’s look at Mark’s paragraphs and see if we can reduce the amount of telling:

Paragraph 1: “I haven’t been to Decoration since my parents died, Odysseus,” John said.

Randy sez: This is a good strong opening. It tells us immediately that John has a goal for this weekend — to go to Decoration (whatever that is). It also gives us a wee bit of backstory: John’s parents are dead. And it also raises the whole topic of death early, which makes good sense in a zombie novel.

It’s a nice start. The one immediate qualm I have is using Odysseus’s name in dialogue. People don’t actually do that too often in real dialogue with real people. When they do, there’s usually some emotive undercurrent — anger, disapproval, or whatnot.

HOWEVER, people do often do it with their pets. I certainly use my cats’ names quite often when I talk to them. The reason is that cats don’t understand English, but they do understand their name, so when you use their name, they react to that, and you feel like they’re reacting to what you said, even though they are really just reacting to the potential for more kibble.

We don’t know that Odysseus is a dog just yet, but we will in the next paragraph . . .

Paragraph 2: Odysseus was John’s dog, and John was drunk.

Randy sez: This is straight “telling.” Mark tells us that Odie is a dog and that John is drunk. There’s nothing particularly wrong with “telling” so early in the story. But is it possible to “show” this? The answer is yes, it’s possible. One way to do it is to use an action tag in paragraph 1 that shows both the dog and the drunkenness. I’ll show you a quick attempt at this after we analyze everything.

Paragraph 3: “Every year now, for seven years, I drag out this cheap tent,” he motioned to the wad of polyester flapping in the bed of his truck. “And I tell myself, ‘This year.’ This year I’m going to Decoration.”

Randy sez: This has the feel of wedging in a lot of information — maybe more than a real person would normally give in dialogue. I think it could be trimmed. Whether it should be is a judgment call.

Paragraph 4: The dog was a mottled black and white mutt. Medium-sized, athletic, and just big enough to make a person grunt when she sat on you. She thought she was a lapdog, but she wasn’t dumb. For instance, she knew better than to sit on her owner when he was driving in the middle of the night on a country road.

Randy sez: This is all telling, but it’s nicely done, so I say Mark should keep it. I can see this dog. Can’t smell it, but that can easily be rectified.

Paragraph 5: “I probably shouldn’t be so hard on myself, right? Crying about my parents every year same time. Promising myself this year I’ll get over it. This year I’ll go out to the cemetery like we always did.”

Randy sez: The only issue I see here is that so far, John is the only person doing the acting, so it’s starting to feel like a monologue. We need Odysseus to respond a bit. She’s a mutt, but she’s still able to respond. I’d like to see her do so.

Paragraph 6: John took a curve too fast, and the tires squealed. Odysseus whimpered on the passenger’s seat and trembled slightly like dogs do sometimes when they are scared or cold or nervous.

Randy sez: This is a mix of John’s action and Odie’s reaction. In the language of Motivation-Reaction Units, the first clause is a Reaction and the rest of the paragraph is Motivation. The main issue I see is that it’s really telling. I’d like to see this better. “Taking a curve too fast” is narrative summary.

Now let me see if I can tweak all of the above slightly:

“I haven’t been to Decoration since my parents died, Odie.” John took another long pull of his Heineken and wedged it on the pickup seat next to his dog.

Odysseus was a mottled black and white mutt. Medium-sized, athletic, and just big enough to make you grunt when she sat on you. She thought she was a lapdog, but she wasn’t dumb enough to sit on anyone’s lap while driving in the middle of the night on a country road. Odie looked up at John with her big brown eyes that said she wanted to hear all this again for the eighty-fourth time.

“I probably shouldn’t be so hard on myself, right? Crying about my parents every year same time. Promising myself this year I’ll get over it. This year I’ll go out to the cemetery like we always did.”

Odie leaned against John and licked his hand. The reek of damp fur washed over him.

John realized halfway into the curve that he was taking it too fast. He eased off on the gas and gripped the wheel with sodden determination, letting the squealing tires bleed off speed. Not bad for a half-sloshed guy at midnight.

Odysseus whimpered on the passenger’s seat and trembled slightly like dogs do sometimes when they are scared or cold or nervous.

Randy sez: OK, I’m trying hard not to inject too many of my own words here, since I’d rather try to work with Mark’s original. Did you miss Paragraph 3, which I cut out entirely? If so, where would it fit most naturally?