Narrative Gaps: Vehicles and Movement

Remember narrative gaps? These are points in the story where something is left out—perhaps a character does something a second time that they never did a first time or a character remembers learning information that the author forgot to have them learn before. Narrative gaps are one of the primary reasons most authors have alpha and beta readers—because after you’ve gone through your own book a dozen times, it can be difficult to spot errors on your own.

There is one type of common narrative gap that you can look for on your own, however: gaps regarding vehicles.

For some reason, vehicles in stories attract narrative gaps like a shiny clean car attracts bird droppings. They usually go something like this:

     “I think this is the place,” Afonso said, pointing out the window to a ramshackle nightclub.

     Graciana slowed the car enough to make out the small sign over the door. “Gaspar’s Place? Are you sure?”

     Afonso shrugged. “It’s the only club we’ve seen in the area. We might as well check it out.”

     “I guess,” Graciana said. “Just don’t wander off and leave me alone in there, okay?”

     “Deal,” Afonso said as they headed inside.

See the problem? Graciana and Afonso are in a car; he points out the window, she slows the car down, and then suddenly they’re headed into the club. Unless they’re driving the car through the door, that means they had to have stopped the car and gotten out at some point—but that point was never shown.

This might not seem like a problem; your readers are certainly intelligent enough to figure out that the characters are no longer in the car if they’re going into the club, after all. But most people picture the scene they’re reading in their mind, and there are few things as jarring for readers as having their image of the scene they’re reading suddenly violated. It will knock most readers solidly out of the story.

This rule applies even to someone who can literally teleport to place to place; you still need to inform your readers when your scene changes.

Another vehicle-related error occurs when characters move in ways that they should not be able to, usually because the author added something in at some point and forgot the scene was taking place in a vehicle:

     Graciana slowed the car as they passed the store. “Can we stop and buy those shoes I wanted?”

     “We’re kind of in a hurry, dear,” Afonso said.

     “I’ll be quick, I promise. Please?”

     Afonso sighed. “Fine. Hurry.”

     “Thank you!” Graciana said with a laugh. She clapped, jumping up and down like a little girl.

Most people are much too large to jump up and down in a car, wouldn’t you say? Particularly when they’re driving.

The good thing about these errors is that they can be easier than most narrative gaps to track down. Simply look for any section of your story where your characters are in or on any sort of vehicle—from cars to bicycles to horses—and double-check for these errors. 

Note: These errors can occur with any sort of movement from one place to another or any sort of enclosed space. Don’t have your characters walking down the street and then suddenly have them talking to a shopkeeper in a store without having them first enter the store, and don't have your characters crouched in a three-foot high tunnel and then have someone start jumping.

Making Movement Meaningful

Pure dialog can get confusing and even boring; it can also fail to convey the many subtleties that people communicate through means like expression and body language. This is the reason that writers often insert small actions into passages of dialog. The actions could be changes in a character’s expression, small movements or gestures, or specific tasks that the character is performing while they talk. For example:

     “I don’t think we should go after her,” Sofia whispered. She shifted in her seat and closed her eyes with a sigh.

     Matilde glanced at Sofia and then looked away. “Why not?”

    “She decided to leave all on her own. No one made her.” Sofia shook her head and bit her lip. “She obviously doesn’t want to be here.”

     “Maybe . . .” Matilde replied, looking down at her feet while she shuffled them back and forth. “But what happens when she decides she wants to be here after all and it’s too late for her to come back? Chiara tends to be pretty impulsive.”

     Sofia stuck out her tongue. “We still can’t force her to do what she doesn’t want to,” she said, waving her hands.

     Matilde looked up with a frown and then turned away again, wringing her hands. “We could. And maybe we should.”

Now, that passage was packed a little too full of actions—every single line of dialog was accompanied by at least one action. That’s partly because I wanted to fit as many examples as I could into one passage, but many people do write their conversation scenes this way.  But why is that too many actions? Am I saying that you should never have an action to accompany every line of dialog? No. The problem isn’t the number of actions so much as it is the lack of purpose behind so many of the actions.

Let’s list the actions from the passage again:

     shifted in her seat

     closed her eyes

     with a sigh

     glanced at Sofia

     and then looked away

     shook her head

     and bit her lip

     looking down at her feet

     shuffled [her feet] back and forth

     stuck out her tongue

     waving her hands

     looked up with a frown

     and then turned away again

     wringing her hands

What are each of these actions supposed to convey? Why is the character performing that particular action at that point in the conversation?  With some of these actions, the purpose is pretty clear. When someone closes their eyes and sighs, for instance, it’s usually a pretty good indication of weariness or irritation. Hand wringing and lip biting are decent ways to indicate nervousness or internal confliction. And frowns are pretty clear indications of unhappiness or severe confusion.

But even those examples could each have more than one meaning. As for the others, they don’t convey anything meaningful. What is the audience supposed to learn from the fact that Sofia “shifted in her seat”? Is the seat uncomfortable? Is she emotionally uncomfortable and the movement is a physical indication of that fact? Was she trying to relax or get a better view of something? There are so many reasons to shift in one’s seat that simply describing the action carries next to no meaning.

Why is it significant that Matilde looked at Sofia and then looked away? What does that mean? What does it mean that she’s looking down at her feet while shuffling them? Is her turning away after looking up with a frown supposed to tell us something about her thoughts? Because it isn’t. It might be vaguely sort-of hinting at some sort of emotional state, but it sure isn’t informing the audience of anything.

Even Sofia sticking out her tongue is confusing. There are so many ways and reasons that people stick out their tongues:

Each of these images conveys a different emotion, and yet they could all be described as someone “sticking out his or her tongue.” From the context, we could probably narrow down Sofia’s gesture to two or three of these, but it still wouldn’t be clear. Is she disgusted? Petulant? Nauseated? We just don’t know.  Remember—most expressions and movements can indicate more than one emotion, thought, or state of mind. Just because you know which meaning you were trying to convey doesn’t mean that your readers will get it.

“Looks” are probably the worst category of offenders on this front. Throughout the conversations I read, characters are “looking” all over the place. They look at one another, they look at their feet, at the wall, at the table, into the distance, into the sky, at their hands, at their clothes. And most of it doesn’t have any meaning whatsoever. Beware the meaningless look!

This usually happens when a writer can tell that the conversation needs a beat or a brief lull to break up the dialog, but they don’t have anything for the characters to do to provide that break. If you need a beat but you can’t think of a meaningful movement or expression for your character, then give them something to do! In our example above, Sofia could have been trying to finish some (plot-related) paperwork while they conversed or Matilde could have already begun packing to go after Chiara. The possibilities are endless.

Give your manuscript to a friend and ask them to highlight any point where the purpose of movements or expressions was unclear or confusing. If you can’t come up with a meaningful movement to replace the vague one, then don’t be afraid to cut it out entirely.

Minding Your "ings" Part Two

Last time we discussed the need for present participles (a form of verb that ends in “ing”) to be paired with a subject that performs the action. For instance:

     As Brad was running to the bus stop, rain began to fall.

    

In this example, both actions (running and began to fall) have a subject attached (Brad and rain, respectively), so the sentence is constructed correctly. We’re good so far. Now take a look at this example:

     Running to the bus stop, Brad climbed onto the bus.

Once again, the participle is not dangling—Brad is performing both actions (running and climbed). So what was wrong with this sentence?

You may remember that in the last post, I mentioned that the phrase “Running to the bus stop,” was a type of adverbial phrase—a phrase that acts like an adverb. Adverbs modify verbs, adding more detailed information as to how the action was performed. Words like quickly or suspiciously are adverbs, as is the phrase “like a ___.” (He landed like a cat.)

“Running to the bus stop,” is an adverbial phrase that tells us when the primary action of the sentence (climbed) was performed—it was performed while Brad was running to the bus stop. And that’s the problem with our example sentence: Brad couldn’t have climbed onto the bus while he was running to the bus stop. He would have run to the bus stop and then climbed onto the bus.

Now, just like last time, you don’t have to remember that whole explanation about adverbs and adverbial phrases. (Though it won’t hurt your writing if you do!) What you need to remember is this: phrases with “ing” verbs are used to imply simultaneous action. If the two actions don’t take place at the same time, you cannot use the “ing” form of the verb. (Most of the time. I’ll show you an exception in a moment.)

So, here’s a corrected version of our previous sentence:

     Brad ran to the bus stop and climbed onto the bus.

Bam! First one action, then another—it doesn’t get any simpler than that.  However, here is another fix:

     After running to the bus stop, Brad climbed onto the bus.

    

This is the exception that I mentioned earlier. If you add an adverb that changes the timing of the adverbial phrase, such as after or before, so that the actions are no longer simultaneous, then you can still use the “ing” verb.

P.S.

The same principles apply to phrases that begin with while and as—these words imply simultaneous action, so they cannot be used with actions that couldn’t take place simultaneously.

But wait, this isn't all! For more on minding your "ings," check out this post.

Word Mix-ups: Between and Among (or Amid)

When it comes to describing the location of characters, novice writers are constantly confusing the words between and among (or amid, which means the same thing as among). Now, both between and among essentially mean "in the middle of"; the difference lies in "in the middle of what?"

The easy answer:

Historically, between would be used if the subject in question is directly in the middle of only two points, and among would be used if the object is in the middle of more than two points or a group. So:

1. Penny stood between Jason and Mike.

2. The hammock was strung between the two trees in the backyard.

3. Penny stood among Jason, Mike, and Katie.

4. The cylon stood among the humans, waiting for the time to strike.

The full, trickier answer:

Take a look at example three again. Does it seem a little strange to you? That's because the proper usage for between and among has evolved over the years. Nowadays, it's common for between to be used in any situation where the points that the subject is standing among are specifically and individually named. So, it would not technically be wrong for example three to read:

3. Penny stood between Jason, Mike, and Katie.

Example four, however, would not be changed, because the cylon is in the middle of a "group," which is a collective noun. If the humans were all listed by name, it would be a different matter; but in this instance, among is correct.

Movement:

Now it gets even trickier. All the examples we've discussed so far involved stationary subjects, but a subject can also move between or among objects.

If a subject is moving, then the above rules for between and among still apply, with one change: between can now be used with a collective noun. Take a look at these examples:

5. The specter flew between the buildings of the city.

6. The specter flew among the buildings of the city.

Both of these sentences are grammatically correct, but here's the important thing: they don't mean the same thing.

When between is used to describe movement, it implies that the subject has a particular destination or goal in mind, or that they are following a specific path. When among is used, the connotation is that the subject is moving or searching in a more aimless, uncertain, or roundabout manner.

So if you were writing a story about a specter flying through a city, you would use example five if the specter was hurrying to a meeting or rushing to locate the person it once loved. In this case, the buildings are essentially an obstacle it has to circumvent. If, however, the specter was simply wandering the city to see the sights, or was lost and trying to find its way out, or was searching for someone (but not in a rush), you would use among to describe its movement.

P.S.
These rules also reply to figurative positions. So, negotiations between the two companies, but negotiations among the soldiers.

Also, remember that amid means the same thing and works the same way as among. Amongst and amidst are simply older forms of these words, so the same rules apply to them.