The Craft

[Steve C]

I don't know about you but once I understood the first draft of my first and so far only novel was a load of rubbish I set about learning from books, videos etc. You name it I devoured it. It takes a while but I slowly absorbed stuff but confused myself sometimes as to what was important.
This morning I came across this article on how to write a scene. I had read it before but stumbling across it again made me realise just how good it is. It just about sums all you need to know. Avoid adverbs and all forms of the verb 'to be' and read this article as many times as it takes and you can save a hellava lot of time.
Sure there are other bits and pieces and developing a voice is not covered but 90% of what I learned over a 2 year period is condensed here so thought I would point it out.

Writing The Perfect Scene

Award-winning novelist Randy Ingermanson teaches the secrets of writing the fundamental unit of fiction -- the scene. Write a perfectly structured scene every time.

www.advancedfictionwriting.com

 

[RK Wallis]

What 'the snowflake guy' says about Techniques of the Selling Author is so true! I refer back to mine all the time

I do wonder, for fantasy, how worldbuilding fits into an MRU. I'd imagine it needs to be in the scene, so the reader experiences it?

Someone needs to tell Marget Atwood because I'm not sensing MRUs in The Handmaiden's Tale, lol. Tells me his comment about breaking the rules also applies when rewriting too. She's worthy of so much admiration - she wrote The Handmaiden's Tale in 1984 and it was published in 1985.

 

[Hannah F]

Really useful, thanks. I have slightly different vernacular (which comes from my learning theory background) that I find easier to follow regarding MRU.

For me, motivation = goal/desire. A hunting dog lives with the motivation to hunt. An anorexia nervosa sufferer lives with the motivation to become thinner.
What he talks about regarding the external and objective (what you can see/hear/smell/taste/feel), I call a stimulus. Therefore, I find it much easier to understand as SRU = Stimulus-reaction-unit or SRRU = Stimulus-reaction (reflex)-response (action)-unit. Same as he described, but clearer for me in my head.

I've re-written it accordingly and will be hauling my WIP through this process once I've finished the set-draft one-aside stage (then more intensively in draft 3 . . . 4 . . . 5 . . . ).

 

[Hannah F]

What 'the snowflake guy' says about Techniques of the Selling Author is so true! I refer back to mine all the time

I do wonder, for fantasy, how worldbuilding fits into an MRU. I'd imagine it needs to be in the scene, so the reader experiences it?

Someone needs to tell Marget Atwood because I'm not sensing MRUs in The Handmaiden's Tale, lol. Tells me his comment about breaking the rules also applies when rewriting too. She's worthy of so much admiration - she wrote The Handmaiden's Tale in 1984 and it was published in 1985.

I wonder how Naomi Novik's "Uprooted" fits in too. Many scenes in the first half lack POV agency (which did, I admit, make the MC a bit annoying at the start). Goes to show, perhaps: great writers can break the rules and get away with it, but do so at your peril.

 

[Steve C]

Yeah Hanna it is more a reaction to immediate stimulus than motivation which is usually a longer-term thing. What I found really helpful is that bearing the idea of MR units in mind as I write really helps to focus on the story and not go off on tangents + it helps enormously with the show don't tell thing.
Rachel I think you are right. I don't read much fantasy but the best does tend to build the world inside the action rather than use blocks of description. Whatever the genre the story is what it's about and the world-building needs to come from within it, I feel. That said I am full of admiration for the writers that do it well. I struggle within the real world without having to make up a new one. In the world of film it is easy as the makers can simply show it to us but for the writer it must be a nightmare to draw the reader into his imagination.