Motive and Movement

Inexperienced comedians and actors often wander the stage aimlessly. Sometimes that’s part of the schtick. More often, though, random action signals nervousness and simply distracts. So in theater, directors often warn actors that you can’t just cross the stage because you feel like you’ve been motionless for too long. Movement originates from motivation.

Tip: Never let your character say or do anything without a current, immediate motive.  

In “Motivation-Reaction Units: Cracking the Code of Good Writing, ” K.M. Weiland explains the “motivation-reaction units,” or MRU’s, that Dwight V. Swain introduces in Techniques of the Selling Writer:

In a story, everything that happens can be separated into two categories: causes (motivations) and effects (reactions). Once you grasp this, all you have to do to create solid and comprehensible prose is to make sure your MRUs are in the right order.

The First Gate blog explores this further. The:

Motivation-Reaction Unit is the fundamental building block of an action sequence (it’s important to stress that it does not apply do description, exposition, or reverie).  It’s pretty simple:  something happens, the hero reacts to it, the situation changes, and something else happens.  How characters react to events will largely determine their plausibility and how closely we bond with them. — 1/21/’11

If perhaps a stream of MRU’s seems like extra work, first consider how logical this is. Then consider all the areas you’ll improve.

~ Characterization. 

To link motive to action, you must clearly identify character psychology. 

~ Verisimilitude.

In real life, people do things for reasons. When they don’t, others ask, “Where are you going?” Or, “What’s suddenly bothering you?” Novels need to supply the answers readers might want to ask. This is especially true when characters change their minds or make major decisions. But. This isn’t permission for a paragraph or two of rumination, because there’s never permission for that. It does mean one sentence pinpointing explicit motive.

~ Stage business. 

A character hears something and thus does something. Causal and realistic. It also tests whether stage business serves some purpose beyond interrupting the dialogue.

~ Causality. 

Within the scene, these MR Units mirror what Linda Seger calls “pressure points”—the five or six turning points forming the spine of the novel. Use MRU’s, and the structure of each scene parallels the structure of the scenario.

~ Emotion.

In both characters and readers. Only characters that make sense elicit empathy, and characters can’t make sense unless the rationale underlying behavior is clear. 

Link motive to motion and action, and you enrich both plot and characterization. Because“why” has always been fiction’s most compelling component. 

The “R” Factor, or Resilience for Readers and Writers

No one roots for the little engine that couldn’t or would recognize Beowulf if he muttered, “I’m doing the best I can.” The appeal of Katniss Everdeen isn’t difficulty choosing between two guys, or even her solid moral center.              

At least in others, not giving up turns us on. And this applies to both characters and those who create them.

The cast of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird lives by this adage: “Real courage is when you know you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what.”  

As George R.R. Martin, who authored Game of Thrones, puts it:

My own heroes are the dreamers, those men and women who tried to make the world a better place than when they found it, whether in small ways or great ones. Some succeeded, some failed, most had mixed results... but it is the effort that’s heroic, as I see it. Win or lose, I admire those who fight the good fight.

This dovetails nicely with Margaret Mitchell writing in Gone with the Wind:  “Hardships make or break people.”  What screenwriting guru Linda Seger calls “pressure points” reveal character. Those who haunt and inspire are at their best when adversity confronts them. What a winning combination: thicken the plot with dire circumstances, use those to drive arc, and wind up enriching tension, adding dimension, maintaining momentum, and highlighting theme.

Tip: Subject your characters to circumstances that demand perseverance.

Now. Is it fair to expect more of your characters than of yourself?

Perhaps one particular writing issue cramps your style. That could be character perseverance, causal plot, artless voice, sleek sentences, or whatever. Pretty much every writer must deal with something. Do you face yours with the determination you require in your protagonist?

Or maybe it’s the actual time and effort. Do you write often enough?  Seriously enough? Maybe you frequently rationalize, procrastinate, take the easy way out, give up too soon, or make everything but your writing a priority. Hmm. Does pressure elicit the best from you as it does from your protagonist?

Marketing. Say you’ve truly revised—deeply and thoroughly. You’ve solicited feedback and responded to suggestions. And you begin submitting. Five rejections later, you quit.  Among others, Louisa May Alcott, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, James Joyce, Stephen King, Herman Melville, J, K. Rowling, Anita Shreve and Gertrude Stein did not. Any message there?

According to Maya Angelou, “You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it.”

Mark Twain says it in nine words:  “A few fly bites cannot stop a spirited horse.”

Tip: Remember The Little Engine That Could.

  

Mad about Resolution

Audiences go mad for resolution. Because it’s among the main attributes of story. So audiences get mad when deprived of resolution, or when it happens too fast for either fun or credibility. The finale of Mad Men, justifiable winner of numerous awards, is no exception: we want the resolution we’ve waited for.

Sure, pressure exerts terrible pressure. Enough that someone can change years of selfishness quite rapidly. But the audience has a hard time believing change that happens too quickly or out of sight. Set up is needed. Gradual build-up is needed. Even for as superb a writer as Matthew Weiner.

Because, as Mark Twain put it, “Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn’t.” People, whether in fiction or life, tend to go on as they always have. What disrupts the status quo? Screenwriting guru Linda Seger calls these moments “pressure points.” Intervention, divorce, and death leave no one unscathed. Upheaval brings out the best in characters. And fiction has always been about human beings at their worst—and best.

After all, we trace our novelist roots back to moral instruction thinly disguised as plot: Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones is saved by the wise, upstanding, symbolically named woman he adores: Sophia. The hero earns his beloved—and the novel’s resolution—because morality triumphs in the end.

What about character arc and plot resolution in your own ending? Here are a couple tricks.

~ Seeds.

Plant them in the very first chapter. If you protagonist has moral fiber or quiz show potential or a dynamic pas de deux, introduce that early. Then the final resolution doesn’t feel like an unjustified miracle, or deus ex machina (miracle-making machine).

~ Pressure points.

Space them out. Successful novels usually have an arc of character development from flawed to worthy of happiness. Use five or six weighty events to make that happiness seem justified.

~ Clues.

Make them too obvious, and you’ve fizzled all the fun from your book. But make them too arcane or oblique and readers won’t believe or accept the ending. Every novel is a kind of mystery. Treat yours accordingly.

~ Memories.

Recollection often saves us. We revisit fleeting images from childhood, recall small victories or big leaps into forgiveness or discovery. Changing our thinking about the pattern helps change the pattern. But the key word here is “fleeting.” You don’t need a whole flashback—just a moment, maybe just part of one sentence. Anything longer is usually a waste of the reader’s precious time.

~ Doors.

Leave them open. Dickens is a great, great writer. But it’s too late to imitate him.

Tip: Set up the ending right from the start, so readers can enjoy a credible, causal climax.