Yesterday I launched a new topic–Motivation-Reaction Units, which I learned from Dwight Swain. For those of you new to “MRUs”, you can get a summary of them in my article Writing the Perfect Scene.
A number of my loyal blog readers commented today on MRUs, and I’d love to respond to those, but my instinct tells me to just get on with an example. We can talk theory later. So I stood up just now, turned around, and grabbed a book off my shelf. This one is a legal thriller by my friend Rick Acker, who’s a lawyer in the Bay Area. The title is DEAD MAN’S RULE, and I really enjoyed this book a couple of months ago.
The POV character in the opening scene is Alexei, a Russian criminal in Chicago who’s waiting for his CIA contacts to show up on a deserted bridge late at night. When the car arrives, the rear window is down and Alexei realizes he’s in deep trouble. Let’s pick up from there:
Alexei jumped back from the rail between the sidewalk and the street just as the car reached him.
Randy sez: This is a reaction to seeing the window down. Alexei is a crook who’s spent all his life in the Russian underworld, so this is part reflex, part rational response.
Three shots–probably intended for his head–caught him in the chest and side. There was no sound of gunfire to attract attention, just three shrouded flashes and the soft zip zip zip of bullets leaving a silencer.
Randy sez: This is a motivation. How do we know? Because this is objective and external to Alexei. That’s what “motivation” is in MRU terminology. This should not be confused with what people usually mean by the word “motivation”. In MRU-speak, “motivation” means precisely that part of a scene which is objective and external to the POV character.
Alexei stumbled and fell.
Randy sez: This is a reaction. Alexei doesn’t do this intentionally, of course. It would be foolish to fall in his situation. But he doesn’t have much choice. He’s just been shot three times in the chest. He happens to be wearing a Kevlar vest, which is why he’s not dead. But even so, three bullets carry a lot of momentum, and he’s hurting. Notice that Rick doesn’t TELL us Alexei’s hurting. At this point, the action is fast and furious and telling us about Alexei’s pain would slow things down. There’ll be time for that in a minute.
“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.
Randy sez: This is a new motivation. It’s external to our POV character, Alexei. Notice that Rick doesn’t TELL us “Alexei saw…” He just SHOWS us what Alexei saw. This is important. You don’t want to waste words in a novel, and telling the reader that the POV character is seeing something or hearing something 500 times in a novel is a waste of 1000 words. The reader KNOWS the POV character is doing the seeing and hearing. Don’t treat your reader like a dummy.
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.
Randy sez: The first sentence here is mixed–partly motivation, partly Alexei’s reaction. The second sentence is all reaction. The pace here is quite fast. I would recommend in a situation like this putting a paragraph break between the motivation and the reaction. It makes a cleaner distinction between Alexei and his assailant and adds a little white space to the page, which makes the pace feel that much faster.
Zip! Zip! Two rapid pulls on the trigger.
Randy sez: Nice! This is the rest of the reaction, and it wastes not a single letter.
The would-be assassin, his eyes now vacant, fell heavily to the ground beside Alexei.
Randy sez: Very good! The action is zipping right along. Alexei isn’t out of the woods yet, of course, but he’s just pulled a nice turn-around on his assassins. He still needs to deal with the driver of the car, but he’s now got a gun. He doesn’t know that it’s jammed yet, but he’ll find that out shortly.
You have many options in your writing. When the pace is slow, you can get away with a lot of telling. But in a gunbattle like this, or any kind of action scene, you NEED to write in MRUs. Nothing else will show the action with any kind of realism.
More tomorrow…
Randy,
I think this MRU thing is finally starting to click for me. But I have a question.
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.
The problem is that I can’t seem to get away from that “heard” and “sound of” stuff. #4 is the best choice (according to the “Don’t treat your reader like a dummy” concept), but that “auditory” truth is lost! Of course the reader could just “know” that my POV character heard this and didn’t see it, but I feel like because I describe it visually they will not really be in his head.
For a full length novel, this gets kind of repetitious.
Any ideas? Randy? Anyone? I’ll be starting editing within a month and this is something I need to address.
Thanks!
-Robert
Robert, just a thought: we would use “he saw” very little for our seeing characters—we simply describe what is taking place and let the character see it too. We readers live through the character, don’t we? You’ll describe how things sound instead of how they appear. You gave an example of running feet: instead of assuming/labeling the “running” for us like narrative (telling), what if you “show”, let the reader experience it through the mc’s senses: If you said “footsteps pounded the ground”, or “thunder of feet passsing by”, things like that, it’s a sensory experience the reader will appreciate and won’t question how mc knew it. Just a thought, hope it helps.
Robert, I think sentence #4 is perfect because if we already know he’s practically blind, we know that he depends on his ears to know what’s going on. Just my two cents.
I can always use more help with MRUs. 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?
I shared a link to your website with some friends yesterday, as we were planning to meet in the evening and write together. You provided us with plenty of motivation (and challenge) and today’s entry answers many of the MRU questions that came up as we reacted. Many thanks, from all of us.
“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.”
I’m having a bit of trouble with the personal pronouns here, and the Alexei possessives. We know the first “he” is the assailant who jumped out of the car. I know it’s not my place to do this, but wouldn’t it read more clearly thus: “As he knelt to frisk through Alexei’s pants pockets, Alexei suddenly grabbed his arm and held it in an iron grip. His other hand shot into the man’s jacket and pulled out the Makarov.”
I know–not on the MRU subject, but I see a lot of confusing pronouns in current writing.
This is for Robert Treskillard: What about “The tramp of running feet kept pace with the jolting wagon.” “Tramp” is a sound word. Two “thes” in the sentence, though.
Sylvia
Thanks to the others for pointing out the confusing pronouns which really make me cringe when I encounter them in newer published novels. Talk about slowing the action! You don’t want your reader to have to reread the paragraph to decipher it. Good action though, I’m just learning this biz.
Robert,
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.”
(or pursuing the wagon, or chasing the wagon)
Lots of possible physical responses that seem “showable.”
You know your character. What is he likely to feel at a particular auditory input?
Randy,
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?
This (yesterday and today) has been a fascinating and helpful discussion. Thank you. Although I write primarily for ages 8-14, this is just as applicable.
This is for Robert. I’m totally blind. But, there are different “levels” of blindness. First, was your hero born blind or did he go blind later in life? This is an important facet. Those born blind “analyze” things different from those like myself who went blind later in life. I still use comments like “You don’t look so good today”, even though I receive my input from my other senses. I joke about “I never saw that”, and I don’t see what you mean”. I also put my sensory information into “visual” categories. Since I’ve seen before When I touch my daughter friend’s new sweater, and ask what color it is, I form a picture in my mind of what it looks like. I do this also with people I meet. I have no idea if my mental picture is the “truth”, but it helps me identify them later. Those born blind have little to no conception of color and you must consider this if your hero was born blind. Color is the one thing that cannot be explained by words alone (or at least one of the things). Each state has a Commission of the Blind in it. They (at least in the state I live in Massachusetts) would be glad to help you with how blind people perceive their environment. Though blind, I still do color coordination for my house, provided my “help” can properly describe the colors to me. I have good spacial imagery and can picture shapes and colors in my mind. I have no idea if other blind can do this. Each blind person, like those of you non-handicapped — are individuals. Give your hero a set of characteristics and stick with them, providing of course they’re viable and realistic.
If you’d like my input to your character, let Randy know. I’d be willing to critique your work. Barbara