Critiquing Davalynn

Life is finally getting back to normal around here. Thanks to those of you who’ve been asking about my mother-in-law. She’s doing a bit better, and my wife has been back home for about the last week. My oldest daughter even persuaded us to paint the living room/dining room/halls on Saturday, which turned into a three-day project. And we still haven’t quite put the living room back together again, but I think we’ll finish on Saturday. Gotta love those “one-day projects.”

Today, I’d like to pick up where we left off a few weeks ago–critiquing those of you who were brave enough to post examples of your writing. We’ll mainly be looking for good structure with those pesky motivations and reactions. For those of you who read my Advanced Fiction Writing E-zine, you’ll know that yesterday’s issue had quite a long article on the virtues of “tactical writing.” And a big part of tactical writing is getting your motivations and reactions right.

Exactly right. Because the difference between “sorta right” and “exactly right” can be huge.

Today, I’ll critique Davalynn, who posted the following:

OK, here goes. Porter (with a flashlight) and James are 10-year-old cousins who have made their way into a forbidden tunnel beneath a small town. They hear a sudden noise coming from another opening in the tunnel:

“Be quiet and listen.” Porter switched off the light.

“What are you doing?” James’ voice chafed with fear as he groped for Porter in the darkness.

“Shut up and listen!” Porter took a deep breath of musty air and held it in as he tried to figure out what was making the scuffling noises. “Hear that?” he whispered. “Someone’s coming.”

Porter heard his cousin make a tight little squeaking noise like he thought a girl would make, so he grabbed his arm and pulled him toward the bar. “Come on. Let’s hide back here,” he whispered. “And stop squeaking!”

“I’m not squeaking.”

“Shut up!” Porter rasped. He could feel James beginning to sweat. He could smell James beginning to sweat. But he had little time to think about it because a spot of thin light was growing inside the hole and soon spilled into the room followed by two hunched-over men who stood straight up as they stepped out of the opening.

Randy sez: This is good. The tension is wound pretty tight here. But can we do better? Maybe just a wee bit better? I think we can.

For starters, we’ll note that Porter is the viewpoint character (also known as the Point-Of-View character or POV character). So Davalynn’s goal here is to put the reader inside Porter’s skin and show us exactly what Porter sees, hears, thinks, smells, etc. Which means that if Porter can’t see it, hear it, think it, smell it, or sense it in some other way, then Davalynn mustn’t let the reader see it, hear it, think it, smell it, or whatever.

Let’s look at each paragraph and see how it works.

“Be quiet and listen.” Porter switched off the light.

Randy sez: Well done! We’ve got four words of dialogue which set the mood very well. Then we’ve got a good strong action tag–Porter switches off the light. I wouldn’t change a thing here. This is what we call a Reaction because it shows us the POV character acting.

“What are you doing?” James’ voice chafed with fear as he groped for Porter in the darkness.

Randy sez: This is a Motivation, because it’s done by a non-POV character. The first half of this is excellent. The reader can hear that quivery voice in the pitch darkness. But . . . the reader CAN’T see James groping for Porter. Because it’s dark. So that needs to be cut. Many readers won’t notice this small glitch, but those who do will suddenly lose the illusion that they are Porter. For just a second, the reader will be a God-like person able to see in the dark. But your goal as a writer is to help the reader maintain that illusion of being Porter.

“Shut up and listen!” Porter took a deep breath of musty air and held it in as he tried to figure out what was making the scuffling noises. “Hear that?” he whispered. “Someone’s coming.”

Randy sez: Well done again! This is another Reaction. Normally, I flag that word “as” because it implies that two things are going on simultaneously. And all too often, the writer presents things as simultaneous that can’t be. But in this case, the two simultaneous things are: 1) Porter holding his breath, and 2) Porter trying to figure out what’s scuffling. These can both happen at the same time, so it works. All is well with this paragraph.

Porter heard his cousin make a tight little squeaking noise like he thought a girl would make, so he grabbed his arm and pulled him toward the bar. “Come on. Let’s hide back here,” he whispered. “And stop squeaking!”

Randy sez: We can tighten this just a little. The reader knows that Porter is the POV character, and therefore if there is a noise, the reader knows that Porter is the one hearing it. So there is no need to say “Porter heard…” It’s better to shave those two deadwood words and get straight to the sensory perception itself. The second minor thing is that it’s not necessary to say that Porter thinks a girl would make a noise like that. We know it’s Porter doing the thinking. Better to just say “like a girl would make.” This is of course a monstrously sexist thought that would be a terrible no-no in a novel for adults. But Porter and James are kids, cootie-hating boys, and such beasts are allowed to be sexist for a few more years yet.

There is a larger issue to resolve though. Now that we have disentangled Porter from what he hears, we realize that this paragraph starts out as a Motivation (it’s about the girly-squeaky noises James is making), but then it morphs smoothly into a Reaction (with Porter reacting to those pesky girl-squeaks). It’s really better to separate them into two distinct paragraphs.

“I’m not squeaking.”

Randy sez: Nice! This is a Motivation again–something said by James, who is not the POV character. Three words, and the reader is immediately wondering what the heck is squeaking if it ain’t little Jimmy. What else is in that tunnel?

“Shut up!” Porter rasped. He could feel James beginning to sweat. He could smell James beginning to sweat. But he had little time to think about it because a spot of thin light was growing inside the hole and soon spilled into the room followed by two hunched-over men who stood straight up as they stepped out of the opening.

Randy sez: OK, I like this. There are a couple of sentences that begin “He could feel…” and “He could smell…” Earlier in this critique, I flagged a sentence just like these and surgically removed Porter from it. But I’m going to argue that it makes sense to leave Porter in these. The repetition of “He could…” works nicely. And the two sentences are tightly bound with the first sentence of the paragraph and the last. So I say that this whole paragraph is really all about Porter, and so we’ll leave it exactly as is.

Now let’s put it all together and see if it reads just a bit better with my edits:

“Be quiet and listen.” Porter switched off the light.

“What are you doing?” James’ voice chafed with fear in the darkness.

“Shut up and listen!” Porter took a deep breath of musty air and held it in as he tried to figure out what was making the scuffling noises. “Hear that?” he whispered. “Someone’s coming.”

James was making a tight little squeaking noise like a girl.

Porter grabbed his arm and pulled him toward the bar. “Come on. Let’s hide back here,” he whispered. “And stop squeaking!”

“I’m not squeaking.”

“Shut up!” Porter rasped. He could feel James beginning to sweat. He could smell James beginning to sweat. But he had little time to think about it because a spot of thin light was growing inside the hole and soon spilled into the room followed by two hunched-over men who stood straight up as they stepped out of the opening.

Randy sez: Does that work just a bit better? I think it does. I didn’t add anything; I just cut a few words. The pacing here is very nice. Davalynn did a great job of mixing up long and short sentences, of action and dialogue and interior monologue. The tension is thick and the reader is RIGHT THERE.

Tomorrow, we’ll critique Lynda’s submission. See ya then!