Still, I thought this would be a good time to stop and think about the plot at the scene level for a bit.

According to Dwight Swain again (as per the folks over at advancedfictionwriting.com), there are two types of scenes.

Swain calls these scenes and sequels, though for my purposes I’m thinking of two types of scenes.

First, the scene should have three parts :

Scene : 1. Goal 2. Conflict 3. Disaster.

The scene should always end in disaster unless you’re at the final climax of the story. The second type of scene, which Swain calls a Sequel, is a reaction scene. In this case, the characters is responding to some major event in the story. The three parts of the sequel are :

Sequel : 1. Reaction 2. Dilemma 3. Choice.

Ok, I know many of you out there hate any kind of formulaic writing. But as I’ve noted previously in this blog, I’ve read a helluva lot of amateur writing over the past 5 years or so, and I’ve read tons more than usual in the last year, thanks to my writing group and active participation in Critters and Bookcountry (and thanks to having many friends who are skilled amateur writers).

You’d be amazed how many of these very talented amateur writers are missing all three of these elements (Goal, Conflict, AND Disaster) in their scenes – which means that the scenes simply aren’t hooking readers in. Generally the characters are kind of wishy washy and just wandering around not doing much. Even when written well, this ain’t a great story.

That a character needs a motivation is one of the most basic things taught in creative writing class (or acting class for that matter). No one cares about your character unless your character wants something. Once your character want something, we get emotionally invested in the story, because now WE want something. We want them to get what they want (being the naturally sympathetic creatures that we are). When character’s don’t have strong goals setup in the very beginning of the story, on the other hand, they don’t want something so we don’t want something and the story falls flat.

So give your characters a goal, and make them care about it deeply and strongly, and make us feel that desire. Then, the reader will care about the conflict and we’ll feel sad at the disaster that alway always always results (again, unless it’s the last scene of the book) and we’ll keep reading because we want to see them achieve their desire in the end.

When your character needs to make a big choice, you move to the second type of scene, the sequel, where they have a reaction, dilemma, and decision.

You have reservations about all this, I can see. You think formulaic writing is stupid. But you’re an amateur writer that’s never been published and you’re looking at MY blog (god help you) to get advice. Just give this a shot.

Pick a story or a chapter of a book you’ve written and think about these things. Break it up into scenes in your mind and ask if each scene has 1. goal 2. conflict 3. disaster or 1. reaction 2. dilemma 3. decision.

Try mentally adding those elements in where they’re missing (and I’m positive they are missing) and see if it makes the story more interesting to you.

Try it. What have you got to lose?

Great stories – it was a fun read because the stories span her career and reminded me of how much I loved her early stuff, too, which had a lot of erm is magical mundane the right phrase?

Great link from my friend Andy about frustration with your own crappy amateur writing.

You know what? Sometimes I look at my stories and I think they suck. Sometimes I see no point in writing at all.

But I think this article puts a great perspective on it. The reason you get frustrated with your own work is because you are an expert at what you’re trying to do. People who want to play music spend tons of time listening to the best performers around. People who want to write have read thousands of books by the best writers out there.

We are the most critical judges; because of that, we turn our criticism on our own work and see how far short it falls of the vision we had in our minds of what we wanted to create.

But it’s a learning process. I’m too far gone to pretend I’m ever going to quit. I’m pretty sure this will be a lifelong obsession – as it was for my grandfather and as piano playing is for my father (who continues to take lessons and practice obsessively and get jitters when he performs at church, even though he’s in his 60s and will clearly always be amateur). As kayaking and art are for Rachel.

Sometimes something gets in your blood and you have to do it. But it can be depressing when you see how far from perfect you are.

Reading something like this article helps keep me going even when I know that what I created isn’t what I envisioned, because everything I write is another bit of practice to help me get to the point where I can make something good.

But if you stop and think about what I’m about to say, and start trying to incorporate it in your writing, I promise you that you will see positive results.

So here it is : the idea you already hate (though you don’t even know it).

Motivation Reaction Units, developed by Dwight Swain.

First, you hate this because its weird technobabble that doesn’t mean anything to you.

Let me explain what it is.

Every scene should be composed of a series of these units. Each unit has three parts : objective stimulus, internal reaction of character, character’s response.

EXAMPLE :

1. Objective stimulus :

She caught a glimpse of a large white tiger crouched in the grass ahead of her.

2. Internal reaction :

She felt her heart speeding up in response and sweat forming on her brow. At last! Her prey in sight!

3. Character’s response, typically with some rational words and action :

“I’ve got you now,” she whispered, raising her gun slowly until she had the animal in her sights. She wrapped her finger around the trigger and squeezed.

Your entire scene should be a series of these.

Ok, now that you know what it is, you hate MRUs for a new reason : because this sounds like some horrible formulaic approach to writing.

But it’s not. It does everything needed to get the reader into the action. It shows the objects in the character’s world; it shows the characters mental response; and it shows a reaction. Much amateur fiction that I read is missing at least one of these elements, which is what keeps it from being zingy or fast paced or absorbing.

With this idea in mind, I decided to look at Trees again – and right away I can see so many places where I’ve flat out failed to include any indication of the MC’s internal responses to what’s going on. If I never show the MC having emotions, well, no wonder the story comes off a bit cold.

So. I think this is a good idea. As with all writing “rules,” you should always remember that there are no hard and fast rules.

But take a scene that isn’t working for you and try rewriting it with the goal of creating nothing but a series of motivational reaction units and you’ll find that it goes more smoothly and grabs interest more easily.

Go on. Give it a try.

Next up : Two types of scenes

Enter bookcountry.com, launched recently by Penguin books.

Book Country is similar to critters in some way. You read and critique three others, and once you’ve done so, you can post your own work and be critiqued.

It has a couple features critters doesn’t have. It allows you to rate the pieces you critique. It has a “buzz” and a “favorites” section, which allows users to gain notoriety on this site by having stories that gain the highest reviews and are most often recommended to friends and other sites. So it’s a place not just to improve your writing, but also to find other writers you’d enjoy reading and hopefully gain your own following.

I’m intrigued.

After all, writers need to be read, just as artists need to have their work appreciated and musicians need someone to hear their songs.

For most of us, writing is an avocation, a hobby, an unpaid obsession, and it always will be. It’s great that a few people are able to merge avocation and vocation.

(as per Robert Frost, Two Tramps in Mud Time –

“But yield who will to their separation,
My object in living is to unite
My avocation and my vocation
As my two eyes make one in sight.”)

Most of us will never achieve this goal, and yet write we can and write we will because write we must.

So sites like Book Country can give us the encouragement of knowing that someone out there is reading what we wrote, that it’s not something that will be shoved in a desk drawer, forgotten, and never appreciated.

The one concern I do have (and perhaps Book Country addresses this in some way) has to do with “publication” status. If you just put up the first chapter or two of your book, then it’s not published. If you put up your entire finished short story, would that count as published? Critters keeps their manuscripts password protected so only people reading them for purposes of providing critiques can look. Book Country’s stuff is available for anyone regardless of whether they’re registered.

I like this feature of Book Country. I don’t think I will ever fail to be published because I had stuff on the web at some point; after all, if I’m going to be a published author someday, then even if someone DID steal a random short story I had on book country, or even if I COULDN’T sell that particular story, well, I really don’t think that small bit of lost revenue will affect my career at all.

Honestly, I’d be flattered if someone wanted to bother to steal my stuff.

But I’m sure this will be a sticking point for some people.

Those people are stuck in the last century, however. The internet is a tool that allows you access to a large community of people who like to read and write the same stuff as you. This is an advantage, not a problem, and it’s time that we all recognized it as such.