We’ve been talking about those pesky Motivation-Reaction Units (MRUs) lately. If you’re just joining us, you can read my summary article Writing The Perfect Scene, which will bring you up to speed very quickly.
Today I’ll analyze a short passage of dialogue that was submitted by Loyal Blog Reader Diane:
“Don’t take it to heart, girl.” The old midwife followed Gwyn out into the warm night air. “You did nothing wrong to cause the babe to die. He was already dead ere you arrived, it was just a matter of the getting him out.”
“I know that in my head, Mistress Bethan.” Gwyn swallowed a sob, “but it will take some convincing to make my heart understand.”
The old midwife laid a grizzled hand on her shoulder. “It often happens so, child. You must harden your heart to it or you can ne’er do this job.”
Tears welled in Gwyn’s eyes, but she hastily wiped them away with the back of her hand. “I don’t know if I can.”
They walked in silence on a road made visible by a half moon overhead, its silvery light illuminating the village’s empty sheep folds. It was eerily still with all the sheep up on the high meadows where the grass was lusher and the air cooler. Behind them, the first heavy strokes of a hammer broke the stillness of the night. Deryn’s husband would work off his grief on the coffin for his wee son.
Gwyn’s eyes teared again despite her attempts to keep them dry.
Randy sez: Dialogue is a classic case of MRUs. One or more characters speaks. Then your POV character speaks. Repeat. Normally, every time you change speaker, you do a new paragraph, so you automatically obey Randy’s Rule Of Putting A Paragraph Break Between Every MRU. (In most books on the subject, this is usually abbreviated as RROPAPBBEM.)
Let’s look at each paragraph in turn and see how it works:
“Don’t take it to heart, girl.” The old midwife followed Gwyn out into the warm night air. “You did nothing wrong to cause the babe to die. He was already dead ere you arrived, it was just a matter of the getting him out.”
Randy sez: Well done on this one, which is a Motivation, since Gwyn is the POV character. The dialogue is nicely broken into two parts, with an action tag between them, showing us the speaker (the old midwife) without telling us.
“I know that in my head, Mistress Bethan.” Gwyn swallowed a sob, “but it will take some convincing to make my heart understand.”
Randy sez: This Reaction is almost perfect, but the punctuation police are going to quibble with you here. You have an action tag, so the period after the first snippet of dialogue is correct. However, the second piece of dialogue is its own sentence, so you should capitalize that “But.”
The old midwife laid a grizzled hand on her shoulder. “It often happens so, child. You must harden your heart to it or you can ne’er do this job.”
Randy sez: This is a new Motivation, and it’s done just right. This why I like dialogue–it’s very natural to write it perfectly in MRUs.
Tears welled in Gwyn’s eyes, but she hastily wiped them away with the back of her hand. “I don’t know if I can.”
Randy sez: Excellent Reaction! We have the feeling first, and it is SHOWN, not TOLD. Diane does not tell us that Gwyn feels heartbroken. She shows the tears welling up. This is a physical emotive reaction, and it speaks volumes.
They walked in silence on a road made visible by a half moon overhead, its silvery light illuminating the village’s empty sheep folds. It was eerily still with all the sheep up on the high meadows where the grass was lusher and the air cooler. Behind them, the first heavy strokes of a hammer broke the stillness of the night. Deryn’s husband would work off his grief on the coffin for his wee son.
Randy sez: This is a new Motivation, in which we get a bit of description. Notice that Diane does not tell us “Gwyn saw” the moon, or “Gwyn heard” the hammer. She just shows them to us. This is perfectly done, from a structural point of view.
Let me elaborate on that a bit. The purpose of “structure” is not to make the reader say, “Wow, great structure!” The purpose of structure is to be so natural that it is completely invisible, so that the reader is experiencing the STORY perfectly. In exactly the same way, when you get truly great service at a restaurant, you don’t walk out saying, “Wow, that waiter was really something, wasn’t he?” When you get great service, you don’t notice the waiter at all, because he is anticipating everything you need and providing it invisibly. When you walk out, you say, “Wow, that was a great meal!”
Gwyn’s eyes teared again despite her attempts to keep them dry.
Randy sez: This is a perfectly acceptable Reaction–again it’s a physical emotive reaction that shows the reader Gwyn’s grief. My one quibble is that it is very similar to the earlier one, so it might be better to give us a different physical reaction. There are any number of these, and I highly, highly, HIGHLY recommend Margie Lawson’s course Empowering Character Emotions where you will learn more than you ever imagined about physical emotive reactions. You can visit Margie’s site at www.MargieLawson.com.
OK, I think it’s time to get some more hands-on practice. If you’ve got a sample of some MRUs that you’d like me to critique, go ahead and post it here as a comment. Let’s put a limit on these, OK? No more than 3 Motivations and 3 Reactions per submission. That is more than enough.
As always, I can’t possibly critique every single example that gets posted here, but I’ll work through them starting with the first and continuing on until we all collapse of exhaustion.
Am I the only poor slave still up pounding away at midnight? Hmm. Okay, then. This is something I just cranked out on my wip in a recent writing spree, so it’s rough. I am fuzzy on where the reaction ends in spots here, and sometimes Iain’s reactions seem to motivate another reaction. I wonder if that means it doesn’t belong. Help. And please cut as needed.
===================
Maggie just stood there in the cottage doorway chewing her lip, empty-handed this time except for the old scarred shovel handle she used as a walking stick.
Iain frowned. “What do you mean she’s gone? Who’s gone?”
She stomped her foot. “Och! Are ye deaf now, laddie? The lass. The one that writes ye letters.”
She knows about the letters . . . ?
Wait—Emily’s gone?
The burst of adrenaline that shot through his veins sent his voice booming. “What do you mean ‘gone’? Since when?” He pushed past Maggie and rushed down the walk, trying to ignore the uneasy tingle creeping up his spine.
“Grace woke up wanting to see her, but the lass wasnae there,” Maggie said from behind him. “We looked everywhere. We waited and waited, but she’s still not come round.”
Rain smacked his face as he sprinted to the middle of the drive where he could get a better glimpse of the house. The old truck was there, next to the house in the same spot where Emily had parked it after church. He turned to Maggie, who had followed him out and stood without flinching at the steady rain matting down her stiff, white hair, her hands clutched together into a tight, knobby clump.
“She hasn’t gone far, Maggie—the truck is still here.”
“I ken the truck is here, I’m no gowk, Iain. That’s the first thing I checked.”
Maggie hadn’t called him by his name since . . . ever. Something was definitely wrong.
“How long has she been gone?” Iain asked as he headed back inside for a jacket. Maggie followed.
“I dinna ken.”
“When was the last time you saw her?”
Maggie frowned and chewed her lip again, a tell-tale quirk he hadn’t seen since Grandpa MacLean was alive. “Lunch.”
Iain checked the clock—nearly seven. Where would she have gone for so long, and without telling anyone?
“Have you checked the . . . never mind. I’ll look.” He pulled on a rain jacket. “Tell Aunt Grace I’ll find her, not to worry. Can you do that?”
Maggie nodded, her face downcast.
“What is it, Maggie? Is there something else?”
“No. Ye go find her then. I’ll tell Grace.”
Randy, I didn’t know where to stop, so if there is too much here please stop where ever…
Hing Sung Ti ducked inside the stone building. Heart racing, his shaking hand fumbled for the bolt, slammed it into the lock. He fell against the door, chest heaving, as his lungs gasp for air. Maybe they hadn’t seen where he ran. An involuntary shiver seized his muscles. It was foolish to have come to town. He knew the danger, but desire overcame good sense.
He heard the faint jingle if spurs as boot heels clacked along the porch planks.
“Over here!” The raspy voice came from just outside the window. “I seen him run in here just as I come round the corner.”
Something hard struck the door.
“Come out ya yella heathen, or we’ll hafta come in an drag ya out by that there piggy tail of yers.” Drunken laughter and obscenities followed.
Repeated blows shook the wooden frame. Hing Sung Ti spun away from the door as instinct told him to run, but where? There was nowhere to hide. Panic nailed his feet to the floor.
“We’ll teach you thieving Chinamen to take our gold.” More voices had joined the first.
An explosion of blows pummeled against the door. Over and over, the battering continued until the entire wall shook from the assault.
“Yeah, ya’all are gonna pay. Frank here’s gotta rope so’s we can string ya up. Leave ya thar swingin’ in the wind so’s yer friends cain see.”
“Hit it again, Clancy. Harder.”
Hing Sung Ti had done nothing to these men, yet they would kill him.
“Nin hao.”
He spun toward the sound. A young girl stood in the shadow, a pistol clutched in her fist.
“I…I am not a robber… I only wished to hide.” Did she understand? Her dialect was not from his province. “Please.” He feared that she would shoot or cry out. Desperate, he spoke in English, “I will not harm –”
Thank you so much for this study of MRUs Randy. I’ve gone over the opening of my novel and revised it with MRUs in mind. I believe there are three MRUs in here, but may be completely deluded. If you have to laugh, please stuff a pair of socks in your mouth first, to save my feelings! Here goes:
……………………………………………..
“Sweet to tongue and sound to eye …”.
She was motionless outside Trocadéro metro station, looking up the steps towards the entrance to the musée de l’Homme. How had she landed here? She should have been miles away, in the Quartier Latin, heading towards the rue St Andre des Arts, to the gallery.
… wood, horn, bone, feather, thread of gut … Again, the peculiar sensation of being not herself, but her double – Laura looking into Laura. This time ‘she’ was seeing, reflected back from the blackness of her pupil, a halo. On the halo’s inner rim was a web from which tiny random drops of light were suspended. Laura recognised and remembered.
It wasn’t spider silk and the drops of light were beads. It was a made-up web – made to trap dreams, bad dreams. In the dark of the night nightmares would lose their way, bewildered by and thus ensnared in the web’s intricate cyclic pattern, condemned to execution by the touch of the first ray of daybreak.
It was a dreamcatcher. Dreamcatchers kept dreamers safe. Only good dreams could pass through the hole at the centre of the web. Four bouquets of feathers – symbols for spirit and thought – dangled from the bottom of the wooden hoop from which this particular snare was fashioned and the whole swayed hypnotically in an air-conditioned breeze. A pendulum, to remind that time was running out? It had long hung above the door to Le Café de l’Homme, the restaurant inside the museum.
The sun flooded her eyes. A flock of birds emerged from a dark stale mouth, flew into her face – a lunchtime crowd in flight from the station exit. There was a fluttering dispersal as they circumnavigated the unexpected island of her body, regrouped on the other side to move onwards as a single host once more.
“Sweet to tongue and sound to eye …”
The words were dusted across the fine blonde hairs on the back of her neck. She didn’t react, didn’t turn to seek the owner of the voice. She knew there’d be no-one there, or at least, no-one visible to her naked eye.
“I don’t no why everybody is bleating about the crime statistics in South Africa,” Tim said. “Two weeks ago the Minister of Safety and Security labelled the escalation of crime as one of the legacies of apartheid. We all know that Mr Deputy.”
Simon shifted in his chair. Complacent fool! The old political face saving crap. If one of those political bigshots would contract haemerroids, he is sure to blame it on apartheid.
The Deputy Director frowned. “So far you are not being exactly helpful Tim. We are looking for solutions here, not excuses.”
Simon nodded his head, grinning.
“Let’s hear what young Simon here has to say.” the Deputy said.
“Thank you Sir. During the past few weeks I gave all these issues a great deal of thought.”
“Yeah?” Tim sneered. “And what brilliant conclusions did you arrive at Mr. Rodin Skosana?”
“Watch yourself Timothy,” Simon said. “Just because I have ten times more brains than you, doesn’t mean you have to be rude to me.”
I realize the following excerpt probably needs some MRU first-aid, but I’m pulling it straight from my WIP with only changing some pronouns to nouns for clarity.
Karel barely letting the door swing shut before turning on him. “What is with you? First you treat me like some empty-headed dolt only good for a kitchen, then you try to ruin the deal with the only guide we have available!”
“The man is an arrogant pig!”
“Who cares? Of course he’s arrogant – he’s the best guide in the area! He’s willing to take us to Paravel at the swing of an ax, knowing his earltan is after you, and you’re complaining because he’s confident about his work? You’re the one who’s too arrogant. You’re willing to throw our lives away for one condescending remark?”
The question stung. “You’re willing to risk your own country to prove you’re my equal. Why do you think I was trying to lead the conversation? If he thought this was all my idea, he’d be less curious about your motives. I was trying to protect your identity!”
She stared at him, her breathing slowing as her anger cooled. He realized he could feel her breath on his lips, which meant she was far too close to him, but he didn’t want to look away, watching her eyes fade from rage to confusion to embarrassment.
She looked down and leaned back, away from him. “I’m sorry.”
“Hey, I think they’re making out” Tim exclaimed.
“Let’s scare them” said Chuck, matching the same mischeveous smile that Tim had.
As they walked through the trees, the moonlight allowed a good view of the inside of the car. The car began to shake and rock as the noises became louder. Chuck looked back at Tim and tried to supress his laughter.
A Scream pierced the night air. The car stopped rocking. Chuck and Tim were suddenly frozen in place.
The passenger door opened and a woman’s body fell out onto the ground.
Tim stared at the body; Chuck at the man who was closing the car door.
Thanks Randy. This is a very helpful discussion. Here’s an excerpt from my Middle Grades novel. Four friends have named themselves The Menagerie. They are at the school playground near dark one night and see boys throwing paint on the school. Margaret is the main POV character.
—–
The other two tossed their empty cans on the grass and ran toward the darkest corner of the school yard.
“Duck!” Tyrone whispered.
The Menagerie flattened themselves against the hill. Margaret felt like a hand was reaching into her chest and twisting her insides around until she couldn’t breathe at all.
Footsteps pounded above them. None of them dared to move.
Margaret tried to force breath back into her lungs, but there seemed no room inside her body for anything besides her pounding heart.
Tyrone sat up. Lily squirmed to her knees. Agatha propped up on her elbows, put both hands on her pigtails and pulled at them.
“Huugghh,” Agatha said, disgusted. “I can’t believe they did that. How awful.”
Margaret lay with her face in the grass, still trying to breathe.
“You okay?” Agatha nudged her with her elbow.
At the touch, something inside Margaret snapped like a rubber band and air rushed back into her lungs like water rushing over a broken dam. She choked, rolled to one side, and sucked in great gasps of air between coughs that shook her entire body.
Randy, I know you said only three, but I think in order to understand this I needed to add the last little bit – but then again I could be wrong.
There stood Sarah Brown. A low growl rumbled over his
adam’s apple. She should know about Mark. His jowls
drooped and he rubbed them.
Sarah turned, and her face blanched at the sight of him.
He wanted to be angry this moment, but the pain of betrayal, the pain his own son brought him—he was not without sympathy. “You are as wicked as Anne Hutchinson.”
Her hands trembled as she set the pot she held down on the board. “Sir?”
“You told Mark he was free from sin.” Twas not that the essence?
“Sir?”
“As Anne Hutchinson denounced holiness, so has your influence on my son led to his unholy acts.” Even as he spoke the words his conscience stabbed him. He pressed his hand against the burning in his chest. He could not admit that Sarah’s influence on Mark was to any good.
Here come the Grammar Police!
Critiquing Diane’s MRU’s, Randy said to capitalize the word “but” making it begin a sentence. “But” and “and” are conjunctions. They function to connect dissimilar or similar (consecutively) clauses. Since they are connectors inside a sentence, they should never begin a sentence.
(The Grammar Police walk off the set.)
Whew! Now we can chat. I know that, these days, sentences in print often begin with “and” or “but.” We look toward the lauded author of the RROPAPBBEM. Should we obey the Grammar Police, or are we correct to begin a sentence with a conjunction?
Aha!! I was waiting for this. There can be no denying that Sylvia is 100% correct. However, I believe that when it comes to writing fiction, the Grammar Police should show some leniency. 🙂
Randy,
I’ve been trying to get this opening into MRUs, but I know I’m doing something wrong, because the first paragraph break is awkward.
Mira Johns took long strides up Chule Vista Blvd., and paused at the crest of the hill, her heart throbbing heavily in her chest, to catch her breath and admire the sprawling white brick campus of Los Robles High School.
Her hands clenched anxiously into fists at her sides. Her new clothes—plaid shorts, frayed sneakers, t-shirt, and a pack slung across her back—felt stiff and foreign, as if she were in a costume. The sudden blast of a horn from behind startled her.
She jumped and turned to see a shiny, red Neon zip past her into the school parking lot. A boy in the backseat was poking his body half-way out an open window, and yelled a string of indecipherable words that floated away with the wind.
Her fingers self-consciously tugged at the hem of her t-shirt while she watched the car pull into an empty parking space. She pushed back the fear that they had been able to see through her that easily. While painfully aware of the fact that she was no ordinary student, she reminded herself that she wasn’t all that different either. Quite literally from a different world, she only had to do one thing to succeed: blend in.
She squared her shoulders and stepped forward, moving undeterred across the street and into the busy parking lot, focused on the building directly below the looming marquee that read: Home of the Trojans. Welcome New Students.
I fear I’m totally at a loss as to how to break up the first few scenes of my YA novel into MRU’s, so I’m just pasting in the first three paragraphs. Any insight you can bring will be fantastic. Thanks!
—————-
As the stars came out for the last time, Azzie watched her little brother scraping in the dirt. He looked determined to dig all the way from Alabama to China with a six inch stick. The last light of the sun was cutting its way through the pine trees behind the apartments and shining on Johnny’s chubby face, making him look a little like the copper Buddha on Mama’s altar.
Azzie brushed her long straight black hair out of her face. She was ten years old, a little tall for her age, with tea-brown skin and slightly slanted eyes. She had been watching a legion of ants carry a beetle down into their colony – they’d had to enlarge the opening to get it down into their tunnels – but now they had all disappeared below. Azzie watched the stars come out one by one. It would be time to go in soon.
Today was Papa’s birthday. He had been dead three years, but it was still his birthday. Johnny was too little to understand, and Mama acted like she didn’t want to remember. Azzie wrote “Happy Birthday Papa” in the dust with a stick.
Howdy, I’m actually going to get a submission to Randy in! I usually miss them.
One thing about using the conjunctions ‘and’ or ‘but to start a sentence. It is allowable, however, the writer should ask if the conjunction is necessary and if this sentence should be related to the previous one.
http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/conjunctions.htm (I hope it’s okay to provide the link for citation. If not, my apologies).
I hope the selection from my WIP isn’t too long. This is also the opening of Chapter 1 (the hook).
——–
WHOMP!
The narrow sleeping berth disappeared, quickly replaced by hard wood. Tristan slammed into the bulkhead with a grunt, then hit the hull opposite a moment later. He slid the two paces back across to the bulkhead as the tossing carrack rolled starboard again. The violent rocking of the ship began to stabilize.
Tristan scrambled to his feet.
Crack!
Tristan let a foul curse escape. With the rude awakening he had forgotten about the low ceiling of his cabin. Bracing himself against the rocking of the ship, he forced his reeling mind to steady itself.
Waves splashed against the hull, competing with the loud curses from the starboard aft cabin. A trace of starlight spilled through the open porthole, but provided little illumination. Tristan blew into the palm of his hand and a dim orb of silvery fire danced to life providing enough light to see by without ruining his night vision. Setting it floating in the middle of the room, he started sorting through his jumbled belongings.
A high-pitched screech resonated across the water.
Tristan’s skin crawled. He froze.
A kraken! In the middle of the Noonian Sea? The only reason a kraken would be in these shallow waters is if it had been…
The low clang of the ship’s bronze bell sounded and someone began shouting “To arms! To arms!”
…summoned!
Ok, this is pretty rough from a draft I’m working on. Only minimal editing done on it to fix it up a bit.
====
Dariee woke up when a bucket of cold water was thrown over him.
“Time to get all nice.” An annoying chuckle followed. “Sorry we can’t spare the last meal.”
When will the joke get old thought Dariee.
A bundle of clothing was chucked into the cell. “Got this lovely dress for you this morning. Get it on, move to it.”
Dariem dressed slowly in the half light. It was a military uniform. Yesterday it was a dress. The day before that he was taken out naked.
The soldier pushed Dariee out into the morning light and shoved him to the side. Then he hit him hard in the ribs. “You’ll have to wait your turn. We’ve got another customer this morning.”
Dariee hugged himself tightly and breathed in slowly. He could feel his ribs clearly underneath the rough military jacket. He had to do everything he could not to pass out. Just ahead of him were the backs of the firing squad, going through a drill he already knew by heart. Every now and then there was somebody else on the receiving end. Who would it be today? He shifted his eyes to the far wall of the courtyard and caught is breath.
Shatiem…
“Fire!”
Sylvia ~ In dialogue, don’t you think you can begin a sentence with whatever your speaker wants to say? The sentence in question is dialogue. Randy is correcting the punctuation, not the speaker’s grammar.
If I said to you, “But voice and style absolutely insist on toying with grammar. I agree with Daan,” would you stop the conversation to tell me I’d began a sentence with a contraction? That’d be a short conversation. 🙂
Besides….. I’ve read attempts at fiction written with perfectly excuted grammar and it had no life. No rhythm, no heartbeat. And don’t forget those punchy imcomplete sentences, also grammatically incorrect. 🙂
Fiction is an entirely different beast, isn’t it???
“Of all the harebrained schemes I’ve ever heard of!”
“Come on, Lizzie! I didn’t like it at first, but the idea is growing on me.” Henry tried to sound convincing as he bent down to look into his sister’s furious blue eyes.
She glared at him from the garden bench. “Nanny told lots of stories, Henry. I remember the one about the man who tried to fly by jumping off the highest castle turret. Will you put that one to the test, as well?”
Henry felt foolish. He hated feeling foolish. He especially hated that he had made a stupid decision, and that his younger sister was rubbing it in. Two years’ difference in age, but somehow Lizzie had a handle on wisdom.
The renowned MacDonald warrior stepped forward. As he did so, he pulled his sword from its scabbard.
Roderick anticipated this and snatched for his own sword. He raised it, hilt held shoulder high, with both hands on the grip, and feet firmly planted, but Gorme did not attack.
Instead, he grasped his own grip with both hands, sword pointed straight down, and with a mighty thrust, drove it deep into the ground. The sword stood, impaled in the ground, quivering with reverberations from the force of the blow.
Relieved, Roderick deftly flipped his sword from point up to point down and drove it into the ground as well. The two men approached each other and clasp hands.
Formalities over, Gorme said, “Send ye galley away. Tell them to return in one hour.” His voice was calm, but low. “No harm will come tae ye. We are not here tae fight.”
Roderick knew Gorme’s reputation. Gorme was ruthless, not above deception to set a trap, but Roderick did not believe that the man would violate a truce. A Highlander’s honor was his most prized possession and even a brute like Gorme would honor the standing swords.
He turned to the sixteen armed oarsmen waiting, expectant, in the ship. He shooed them away from the shore with his hands, then pointed at the sun with one hand while holding up one finger on the other.
“Wait! Stop,” Porter yelled, and a violent jolt knocked him against the side of the shaft. Dirt rained down from the top of the cramped tunnel and the old timbers groaned and creaked around them. For several seconds the shaft rocked and swayed like a carnival ride at the fairgrounds, and as suddenly as it began, it ended.
Porter coughed in the dust-choked blackness and brushed dirt from his face. “James,” he called. “James! Where are you?” He crawled back down the shaft on his hands and knees until he bumped head first into a pile of dirt with a tennis shoe sticking out of it. “James!” he cried.
Like a dog he clawed and dug with his fingers, shoveling handfuls of dirt out behind him, lengthening the stretch of leg that extended back from the shoe. The leg kicked and he jumped, but quickly recovered and bore into the loose dirt, scooping it away like a mole, farther and farther up the leg until he felt the knee.
A hand reached out and grabbed him and he screamed. James – it was James. “I’m coming,” he yelled. “I’m going to get you out! Hang on!” He jerked his wrist free and continued digging until both of James’s legs were kicking and one hand clawed at the air.
“Help me, James! Start digging! Dig yourself out!” Porter desperately tore away at the dirt, loosening James’s right arm, reaching his chest, then his neck. “Help me, God, please help me,” he cried, and he grabbed the arm and jerked with everything he had, yanking James from the dirt like a dead man from a grave.
I’ve seen the use of “And” and “But” lots of times in fiction, Sylvia. As others have pointed out, it’s the way we think and speak.
Bruce, this scene is really familiar. Have you already published this in something I’ve read? I can almost see the movie!
Here’s my offering.
Laurie stood at the sink pretending it was their sink-hers and Al’s-that she was clearing up their breakfast dishes. It helped to help pass the long days between the infrequent letters from him.
Three short rings from the telephone interrupted her fantasy.
She dried her hands and answered.
“Laurie? It’s Leroy Montgomery. Is Kent there?”
“I think he’s out in the workshop. Can I take him a message?”
“No, I need to speak with him directly. It’s urgent, honey. Would you call him?”
Laurie let the receiver hang gently below the phone and ran across the driveway to the workshop where, over the noise of the table saw she motioned to get Pa’s attention. He turned off the saw and lifted the eye shield.
“What’s up, daughter?”
“It’s Sheriff Montgomery on the phone. He says it’s urgent.”
Laurie watched as Kent laid aside the eye shield and disconnected the saw. She followed his long-legged stride to the house and observed the parade of expressions that crossed his face as he talked with the sheriff. Questions spun in her head, but she knew better than to ask outright.
***
No, Lois, I have not published this anywhere, although I’ve taken it to my local fiction writers’ group for critique. This is a short passage from my novel’s prolog where I set up my story’s main character for failure before we’ve even met him. Although Roderick is the POV in this scene, this segment pre-dates the story to come by about four months.
Thank you, Randy! I wanted my opening lines worked on, and now I see nineteen folks before me…!Aaarrrgh. Hopefully your patience will hold out.
A Chopin nocturne played softly in his head as the walls receded. Her lips were pulled back, smiling at him. That was a nice touch, her grateful smile. She understood.
He reached forward and moved her lips with his fingers, forming the words thank you.
“You’re welcome,” he said. They always thanked him.
He drew a tube of lipstick from his pocket, twisted off the lid and deftly stroked it on her lips. The innocent blush of pink set off her pale skin. He dropped the tube back into his pocket, then pulled out a bottle and sprayed it on her neck. The sweet smell of lilacs filled the room.
Humming softly to the music, he skimmed his fingers down her body, gently smoothing her clothing and re-arranging her arms. His hand encountered the copper bracelet on her wrist.
A pleasant jolt shot through him. He caressed the metal with his thumb, then gently eased the bracelet over her broken hand and slipped it into his pocket.
She moved.
Hands motionless above her chest, he paused, then blinked. His eyes felt like sandpaper.
-The Quazimoto Effect
I agree, Camille, but couldn’t the sentence read: “I know that in my head, Miss Bethan,” Gwyn said, swallowing a sob, “but it will take . . . .” Doing this would satisfy the Grammar Police — and the rest of us, too. You are right that “the rules” change for dialogue. You are also right about the incomplete sentences. However, shouldn’t these constructions be used only when necessary? I’m siding with the Grammar Police who allow breaking the rules occasionally, but to do so too often smacks of not knowing the rules at all. We don’t want editors to think THAT — especially if/when we are trying to break into print. Those of us who are “newbies” need to be more careful than John Grisham or other well-established authors.
Dang it! Forgot to reformat my cut and paste to make the paragraphs more distinct. Sorry for the repost.
——–
WHOMP!
The narrow sleeping berth disappeared, quickly replaced by hard wood. Tristan slammed into the bulkhead with a grunt, then hit the hull opposite a moment later. He slid the two paces back across to the bulkhead as the tossing carrack rolled starboard again. The violent rocking of the ship began to stabilize.
Tristan scrambled to his feet.
Crack!
Tristan let a foul curse escape. With the rude awakening he had forgotten about the low ceiling of his cabin. Bracing himself against the rocking of the ship, he forced his reeling mind to steady itself.
Waves splashed against the hull, competing with the loud curses from the starboard aft cabin. A trace of starlight spilled through the open porthole, but provided little illumination. Tristan blew into the palm of his hand and a dim orb of silvery fire danced to life providing enough light to see by without ruining his night vision. Setting it floating in the middle of the room, he started sorting through his jumbled belongings.
A high-pitched screech resonated across the water.
Tristan’s skin crawled. He froze.
A kraken! In the middle of the Noonian Sea? The only reason a kraken would be in these shallow waters is if it had been…
The low clang of the ship’s bronze bell sounded and someone began shouting “To arms! To arms!”
…summoned!
Thanks, Randy, for the critique and the compliments! You’ve really bolstered my confidence, considering I’m still a “freshman” and it’s a first draft that I stole that bit of dialog from. I’ll definitely keep an eye out for repeated emotional reactions. Thanks for the input.
“Evenin’, Officer,” she said as she turned toward the window, a slow smile spreading across her lips. “How fast was I goin’?” In one fluid motion, she handed over her literary license and writing registration, pulled her shoulders up straight and turned again with her most dazzling smile. “You’re absolutely right. I sure wouldn’t want to break the rules.” With a few well-aimed strokes of her long, dark lashes, she added, “I’ll try to be more careful next time.”
(for Sylvia. 😉 )
as usual, I’m late, but what the heck:
Geran leaned on his knees for a few moments as Kael sat silently, observing him from the corners of her eyes. He noticed the tablet had been changed and picked it up. He looked at it for a long time, rubbing the corners with his thumbs, then took up the stylus and carefully scratched out each letter before placing it back. Kael’s heart thrummed in her chest. Finally Geran turned to her.
“It is much easier to get to Elis from Delphi. To retrieve your family, once we have settled in Delphi. I believe Cassandra is considering coming with us – you could make the trip with her…”
Kael was silent. Heat slowly rose in her throat. “Mm,” she answered, “and where will I live? Just next to the master bedroom, so I can hear the titillating sounds of procreation as I try to sleep? Or perhaps in the slaves’ quarters, along with the rest of those who are in your service!”
Geran ‘s eyes were piercing. “I don’t know what you expect,” he spat. “I am doing the best that I can under the circumstances. I’d ask that you try to understand.”
“I can ‘understand’ until my face turns blue,” Kael interrupted. “It does no good.” She breathed heavily, and lowered her head so that her hair fell in front of her face and he would not see her lip quiver. Geran’s expression had softened, though she did not see it. “I apologize for being so weak,” she nearly whispered, not without a trace of bitterness.
Morning all,
First time writer, from my first draft. I don’t mind standing shyly at the end of the line.
Peter felt agitated and nervous in a weird kind of way, explanation eluding him. All he knew with complete certainty, but with no idea of the why, that he had to return to his hometown, where it had all started over thirty years ago.
Finally, reaching his friends door, he burst inside, without bothering to knock. “Roger, I need to talk to you, now!” His breath was shallow and quick.
Professor Roger Togunaga looked up with a startled smile: “Whoah, where’s the fire? Did someone steal your test results?”
Peter didn’t smile back, but instead plunged himself into the old leather chair across from Roger’s desk. His mind recalling the endless hours of discussions he’d had with his best friend. The many times, along with a bunch of other faculty members, they had tried to make sense of their findings, discoveries and theories, attempting to decipher applicable meaning for society in general and mankind in paticular, mostly falling short of unifying conclusions.
“Roger, I have to go back home, I absolutely have to, there’s no other way!” Peter spoke with urgency in his voice.
“Why?” Roger, looking puzzled, wanted to now. “What’s going on now?”
Peter hesitated, listening to something that wasn’t there, then answered in a slow and halting voice: “The whispers are back, so are the nightmares and visions and this impossible urge to go home and no, I’m not crazy!”
His old friend looked at him, a wistful shadow quickly crossing his face: “Not again, Peter, I thought you were finally over this whishful dreaming. Come on, let’s go for a drink and talk about this.” Roger knew all his friends strange stories, all the way back to their childhood, all the strange occurances nobody could explain. “You want me to come with you?”
Peter shook his head: “No, not this time. I’m certain that this is something I’ll have to do on my own.”
His thoughts were interrupted by an abrupt surge of activity on the scanner. Annoyed with the distraction, he set down his maps and got up to turn off the radio, but his hand froze on the switch as a strained, but measured voice came over the air.
“Coos, 10-66 with officers down.” Hank read the labels pasted below the LED’s. The transmission had come from the F&G frequency.
“Code 1000 – all units stand-by. What’s your 18?”
There was no code sheet, but Hank didn’t need one. His gut told him what his brain couldn’t decipher.
“Hold on Coos.” Silence. Then, “Coos, I’ve got an 18 on Fire Lane 7 just south of the Canadian Port of Entry.”
“Ten-five, FG47. Ambulance is en route.”
“Make that a Code 3, Coos.”
“Forty-seven, are you requesting Med Flight?”
“Ten-five.”
The ear shattering tone brought Finley out of a sound sleep.
“Attention all units, SP 52, FG 55 and Border Agent 27, 10-66. One officer down, unknown number of other casualties. Code 3 to Fire Lane 7, three miles south of the Canadian Port of Entry.
Hank would rather have confronted a set of MIG fighters over the jungles of Duc Pho than to face the young woman who was walking through the kitchen door.
“What’s going on, Dad?” she asked.
Hank hit the switch on the scanner before he answered. “Audrey, where’s Ben tonight?”
She fought to keep the panic from her voice. “He’s working. Why?”
He crossed to her side of the bar and put his hand on her shoulder. “There’s been a shooting.”
“Who? Where?” She trembled.
“Fire Lane 7, up by the border.”
Audrey’s head began to swim and she could barely speak. “I have to get to him.”
“Audrey, calm down for a minute. We don’t even know if it’s Ben.”
She spoke, her voice quavering. “Of course it’s Ben. Now, where are my keys?”
“I’ll drive,” he said as he grabbed the keys off the counter.
Is anyone able to go to Margie Lawson’s site? When I get there and scroll down it’s nothing but blue lines.
Thanks to our host and all your contributions, I’m learning a bunch. Mahalo, gang.
After submitting my little piece I’ve also noticed right away where I should have incerted a comma, rather than periods.