Category: Katie Ganshert

Why the Underdog?

Posted on by Katie Ganshert

So, I’ve been thinking a lot about inspiration lately. Maybe it’s because my husband made me watch the 18th hole of the British Open. Tom Watson, 59 years old, needed to get a par to win. While the crowd went berserk, I kept thinking, “Wow, there is SO much pressure on this Tom guy right now.” And then I said to my hubby, “Everybody wants to be inspired.”

How true is that? I don’t know anybody who wasn’t rooting for Tom to sink that put (he didn’t). We all wanted to be inspired. We wanted to be moved. So, being a writer, I decided to write a list of everything that inspires me.

What did I learn?

My list kept coming back to one theme: the underdog. Whenever a person wins, despite all the odds stacked against him, I’m inspired. And I think most other people are too. Rudy. Harry Potter. Frodo. Rocky. Lance Armstrong, Miracle (the hockey movie). Apollo 13.

Whether it’s real or fiction, when someone works through an insane amount of adversity in order to accomplish his goals, that’s inspirational. Why is that? Is it because we want to believe we possess that same potential for greatness? Is it because we want to see the ordinary do something extraordinary?

I asked my husband what inspires him.

His answer: The unimaginable.

Jesus was pretty unimaginable. He’s pretty inspirational too.

Questions to Ponder: What inspires you? And if you’re a writer, how can we inspire others, both with our lives and our stories?

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Motivation Reaction Unit

Posted on by Katie Ganshert

Why is there so much hype about MRUs? Because. A well-done MRU pulls your reader further into your story. And that’s what we want, right?

Dwight says scenes are told in a series of causes and effects. Or, a series of stimuli and reactions. You string enough stimuli and reactions together, and you’ve got yourself a compelling scene.
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What elements compose an MRU?
1. Motivating stimulus: the stimulus occurs outside your character

2. Character reaction: the reaction occurs inside your character
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Example MRU: Hot water splashed against her skin (motivating stimulus). She yelped and sucked her finger (character reaction).

Notice, the character is NEVER the subject of the motivating stimulus. You do not want to say: She felthot water spash against her skin. Nix the “she felt”. This distances your readers. It’s a no-no.
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Let’s break down the character reactionaspect of an MRU.
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Three Components of Character Reaction:

1. Visceral: What emotion immediately overtakes your character? Your character has no control over this.
2. Reflex: What reflexes kicks into action? Do they duck? Gasp? Flinch? Yelp? Run? 
3. Rational Action/Speech: What does your character do or say? Your character has control over this.
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Important note about order: Don’t get it wrong.
The motivating stimulus must come first. Your character can’t react to something that hasn’t happened yet. You wouldn’t want to write: She yelped and jabbed her finger in her mouth after the hot water splashed against her skin. This reads funny – the MRU is out of order.
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The components of the character reaction must stay in order as well. A visceral reaction always comes before action or speech. When hot water splashes against your skin, your nerve endings burn, then you yelp. It’s not the other way around.
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Get the order right and hook your reader. Get the order wrong, and your reader will know something is off, even though they might not be able to verbalize what’s wrong.
Let’s look at a detailed example:
Motivating stimulus: car backfires
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Character reaction:
– Visceral reaction: pulse seizes 
– Reflex: his limbs jerk
– Action: grabs wife’s arm and spins around to locate the noise
– Speech: “What was that?”
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How this would look in the story:
A loud clap splits the air (motivating stimulus).
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Jack’s pulse seizes (visceral) and his limbs jerk (reflex). He grabs his wife’s arm and spins in all four directions, trying to locate the source of the noise. (action) “What was that?” (speech)
 
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Notice: I showed the visceral response. I didn’t tell it. I didn’t write – Jack is startled. Also, the stimulus and the reaction have their own separate paragraphs. This should always be the case.
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Should we put all four elements of character reaction in every MRU?
Of course not! Unless you want to exhaust your reader.

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So how do you know when to put all the elements in?
-When you want to increase tension
-When you want to highlight something important
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When you want to highlight something important and increase tension, this is prime time to bring your reader deep and include every component of the MRU.
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Questions to Ponder: How do you feel about MRUs? Did this help you understand them better? Any questions you still have about them? I can try to explain if you do.

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Breathe Life into your Setting

Posted on by Katie Ganshert

How do we make our settings real for our readers? How do we make them breathe and pulse with life?

Two ways:
1. Vivid images
2. Discretionary detail
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What are vivid images?
An image that creates a strong picture in your reader’s mind. You create these images by taking advantage of sensory details: sight, sound, touch, smell, taste.
I’m all for abstract. Abstract definitely has a place in fiction. But sometimes, creating a vivid image means being concrete.
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Instead of: The room smelled like death. Try: The room smelled like rotted flesh.
Instead of: The silk blanket felt smooth. Try: The silk blanket glided beneath her fingers like cool glass.
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What are discretionary details?
Details you purposefully choose to highlight. At your discretion. The fewer the better.
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What do you, as a reader, want to read? A lengthy paragraph, detailing a room in its entirety? Or, one or two close ups of items inside that room that hint at mood and emotion? I don’t know about you, but I’ll pick the second option every time. I don’t care what color the trim is, unless, of course, the trim is important to the story.
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Obviously, the details you choose to highlight should feed into the ambiance of your story. It all comes down to your discretion. Do you want to hone in on the abandoned tricycle lying in the yard? Or would you rather focus on the weeds strangling the patch of wild lilies growing by the fence? Or maybe you want to focus on the rusted lock bolted on the gate.
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You see, the details you choose to highlight not only go a long way in creating a vivid picture, but they elicit a specific mood as well. Be very intentional about what details you choose to highlight. And limit your descriptions to one or two vivid images, because if you go beyond that, you will dilute the power of your setting.
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One last word on setting: remember to present your setting subjectively, filtered through the eyes of your focal character. How does your focal character view her surroundings? Find a way to bring that emotion to the forefront by zooming in on details that will communicate these feelings.

Questions to Ponder: If you’re a writer, how do you handle settings in your stories? If you’re a reader, what types of settings do you enjoy reading about?

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