Deep POV Lesson 11 – MRUs

MRUs? Huh?

An MRU is a Motivation Reaction Unit. It’s a term coined by the inestimable Dwight Swain, and it’s a magic key to keep your reader immersed deep in the story. It may not be DEEP POV, but it’s closely related. So, I’ll just give you a taste and send you off to Google and learn. It’s another class entirely – one I would encourage you all to find and take, maybe from more than one teacher.

Like I said, it’s MAGIC.

The micro structure of a scene should be a series of MRUs. If done well, they too will feel seamless.

The M stands for Motivation. It’s something your character experiences with his senses (he sees it, hears it, smells it – you get the picture). If it’s well written, your reader will experience it just like the character does. The motivation is external.

Then comes the Reaction.
The character reacts internally to the motivation. Reaction is made up of three things, in the following order:

Feeling
Reflex
Action/Speech

Here’s a scene from True Courage. Rick is the hero; they’re flying in a blinding snowstorm and he’s allowing the lieutenant to land the helicopter. . .

Rick let the lieutenant find a place to put down to wait for the ground crew to be ready for extraction. Everything seemed okay. Yeah, the snow was falling harder by the minute, but this wasn’t some wimpy whirlybird used by the Flight for Life guys. The Hawk could handle anything.
Within reason.
Glen Morrisett lowered the collective and started the descent to the large flat spot he’d picked. Upslope, a wisp of snow swirled down the hill on fickle mountain wind.
“Watch your rate of descent, Lieutenant. Looks like we have a downslope.”
The lieutenant was on course. Angle looked right, but the rate of descent was a little high.

This is the motivation in red.

Rick’s shoulders tensed and his gut tightened. Something didn’t feel right, didn’t sound right.

Here’s your feeling and reflex in blue. Notice that they aren’t necessarily in that order. Perhaps I should have reversed those two sentences.

Rick looked quickly at the power. It was taking too much to hold the approach.

Here’s his action in green.

Then another motivation.

His ear picked up another ominous warning: the rotors were slowing down. Something was wrong and getting worse. Bad. But not too bad… yet.
“I have the aircraft,” Rick said, glancing to his left, smiling to reassure the kid. “Nothing personal.”
“Yes, sir. You got it.”

So now, back up to that first section before the initial red above:

Rick let the lieutenant find a place to put down to wait for the ground crew to be ready for extraction. Everything seemed okay. Yeah, the snow was falling harder by the minute, but this wasn’t some wimpy whirlybird used by the Flight for Life guys. The Hawk could handle anything.
Within reason.

Is this an MRU as well? If so, can you color code it?

I won’t belabor this lesson. It’s way too vast a subject for one little lesson. Go forth, Google, and learn.

Cheers, Jax