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!