TECH: Slowly he turned, looked in the mirror, and raised the brush? Nono #6?

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

Original posting 6 Nov 2010

Okay. Yesterday was a bad day for me. I got busy with work, fought off the dripping nose with a dose of whatever the medicine is, but paid for the temporary relief with a series of fun symptoms such as sleepiness, dry mouth, and aching sinuses. For a while, I thought I was going to do something, but I finally just gave up. After all, I had managed to do a little, enough that I was over my target for the day (with extra from before). Funny part is that the nano site insisted I slipped a day because I didn't meet the daily level, even while it admits that I'm ahead overall. Me thinks there's a glitch in the program, there, but I'll not argue with it. (and I notice today that they seem to have removed that line from the stats. Perhaps someone else argued?)

Let's see. Over here http://community.livejournal.com/writercises/141633.html I mused about the little stuff. Adding in some details about what's going on, how your hero and his team actually got from their gathering place in the inn of the seven gables to the great fight scene, and all that stuff. (A bus? They took a bus? Did they have to change lines, or was that an express?)

Still a good idea. After all, just because your characters are heading into major fun and games doesn't mean they can avoid all the little trials and tribulations of life. When they get up, they probably need to go through their morning routine -- shave, brush teeth, wash face, shower, bath, makeup, dressing, and all that stuff. Eating lunch? Hey, they have to sit down, order (assuming they're in a diner or some other eating establishment), pick up the napkin and put it in their lap (or do they tuck it in their shirt? I remember eating once with a young man who did that. I kept wanting to laugh every time I looked across the table, but it did keep the food off of his shirt.). Get the food, and walk through unwrapping the burger, eating some french fries, putting a straw in the drink and sucking on it, all those little bits and pieces! Oh, and did you ever notice that the first draught of a soda and the last dregs are different. Something about the ice melting, and the fizz going flat. And that wonderful sound of someone trying to suck a little bit more out of the glass, the swish, swish, rattle.

Any and all of that detail is grist for your word mill! And who knows, you too might become well known for telling 24 hour stories in a mere 500 pages or so (not in an hour long show).

Okay. The point is that adding in details about the background, daily life, all the contents of the bag that fell to the floor when the old man missed putting it on the table (what, you don't want to know that there was garlic cloves, an onion, a quarter pound of chopped beef a.k.a. hamburger, a loaf of stale bread, and a half-dozen eggs in the bag? Or that when he picked it all up and found two eggs broken, he stirred the ingredients together and made meatloaf? Which reminded him of that old TV show, where the son-in-law was called meathead, and he laughed as he tried to remember who the other characters were. Archie Bunker? And his wife was... huh, that's gone. How about the cute blonde with the big smile that was the daughter? All In The Family, that was the show, and I'll bet Google could provide enough details, maybe even a joke or two, that you could have your character watch an episode if they happen to be living in that time and place...).

Details! That's the thing that makes the story ring, and fills the wordy count of nano...

(Edith Bunker! And Gloria? Yeah, I think that was the daughter... sigh. Those were the days, my friend...off to put some more words in the mill before the sun sets in technicolor splendor over the hills and byways)

TECH: Around the horn... Nano Notes #7?

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

Original posting 7 Nov 2010

This will take a little explaining, but I glanced at this posting http://madgeniusclub.blogspot.com/2010/11/sweet-emotion-entertain-and-move-your.html and got intrigued enough to at least look at the links. Good stuff, and in fact, I'm going to talk about what is called motivation-reaction units (MRUs) in one of them. Specifically, over here http://www.advancedfictionwriting.com/art/scene.php Randy Ingermanson talks about these (although he says he got them from Dwight Swain, and kept the name because it is so ridiculous). It's kind of a basic approach to writing narratives with a POV character.

See, the idea is that first you have a short bit of action -- something happens! External, objective, just the facts. A tree falls, the door opens, something happens. So you write that little bit. That's the motivation.

Then, in a new paragraph (or perhaps a sequence of paragraphs), you have the internal, subjective reaction by the POV character. In particular, you may have three parts, and they must be in this order. First, the character may have some instant feelings -- fear, anger, whatever. Then, second, there are some reflex reactions, such as jerking back, jumping, and so on. Finally, third, the POV character gets around to rational action and speech.

And Randy suggests making a discipline of writing your story that way. One bit of objective stuff, followed by a chunk of reaction, and repeat. Step-by-step. Put a series of these together, and build a scene.

Which is the other part of his and Jim Butcher's piece at http://jimbutcher.livejournal.com/2880.html of course. Randy suggests that we build our large-scale scenes using two parts, too. The scene is more external, built out of a goal that the POV character wants to achieve, obstacles that get in the way, and ending in a disaster, a failure for the character.

Which kicks off a sequel, looking at the reaction, the emotional result of the disaster. Followed by trying to figure out what to do now, laying out the dilemma of choices, and ending in a decision, a choice to push ahead -- which takes us to the next scene. Jim Butcher chops up the sequel a bit differently, starting with the same emotional reaction and ending with a choice, but putting two steps in the middle. First is review, logic, reason trying to understand what happened. Then comes anticipation, trying to see what is ahead. But they're both walking us through the internal reactions of the POV character.

And again, as with MRUs, you get this cycle, or layering, with one external chunk, then an internal one, and repeat.

Interesting. I'm not sure about grabbing new writing tools in the middle of the nanowrimo whirl, but it's worth a little thought. Especially that MRU micro-structure. Write an objective paragraph, external action. Then fill in the emotional reaction, the instinctive reaction, and the final rational words and actions. And repeat. Again and again!

Let's see. The aged nanowrimo note over here http://community.livejournal.com/writercises/142259.html was based on an artist who had found that simply turning a picture upside down helped novice artists to draw better, because it forced them to really look at the picture instead of their expectations. And I raised the question of what would convince us to really look and think about the subjects of our writing, so that we could show the reader what is really there instead of simple pre-conceived ideas. In some ways, writing using something like the MRU structure might be that kind of breaker, because filling in the four parts (what's the objective motivation? What's the immediate emotional reaction? What's the instinctive reflex reaction? And what are the rational thoughts, speech, and action at the end?) forces us to think carefully about each step in the story.

I think I see Cape Horn off to the side, or perhaps it's the Cape of Good Hope? Anyway, time to reef some sails and turn this ship. Anyone see a star to steer her by?

Write!