[00:13] Rachel: Hey, writers.
[00:14] Emily: Welcome back to Story Magic, the podcast that will help you write a book you're damn proud of.
[00:18] Rachel: I'm Rachel.
[00:19] Emily: And I'm Emily.
[00:20] Rachel: And today we want to talk about reaction progressions. So this is going to be a meaty episode. Buckle up. You are in for a ride. You're going to love it. This is an on page drafting skill. Okay? So when we're talking about the tips and tricks in this episode, we're explaining how to draft a character's reaction to something. There's a specific progression in the way that our bodies process information, and we want to mirror that with our characters. We want our characters to go through kind of processing something happening and then reacting to it in a step by step order.
[01:09] Emily: Before we jump in, though, I just want to preface with, like, if you have perfectionist tendencies, I want you to take a deep breath right now because this is a tool that is very helpful for clearly communicating through the page.
[01:26] Rachel: Right.
[01:27] Emily: But this is not a skill that is necessary for first drafts. This is not a skill that is necessary even for second drafts.
[01:35] Rachel: Right.
[01:36] Emily: This is the kind of thing we don't want you to overthink it.
[01:40] Rachel: Yes.
[01:41] Emily: I've had clients before trying to put this formula into every sentence has this shape. That is not what we're going for. What we're going for is to teach you kind of a general idea of how do you approach putting a character's experience right. Their lived experience through their eyeballs and brains into words on the page. And this formula can be a helpful way to look at where you might be able to be clearer in your writing. So I just want to preface that with, like, don't overthink this. But also, I'm very excited to talk about it because my nerdy brain loves this.
[02:18] Rachel: I know it was such a huge tool for me. So to paint a picture, I used to hear the writing advice that your prose and how a character moves through the space, they should always be using their five senses. And so it was like, what are they smelling? What are they tasting? What are they touching? What are they seeing? Like, all of their senses. That's how you really get a reader into that deep POV. It's like letting us know those five senses. Awesome. But I wrote, like, super way over the top. Not helpful. It was like a vomit of words all the time because I was missing the point is, like, when you're trying to put a character into deep POV or put a reader into the POV of your character, you want them to feel as your character feels. But I don't move around my day constantly thinking about what I'm touching. But I do react to stimulus. I do react like, my brain fires off. I say things. I feel certain things. And so this formula of the progression of how we react to something. That's why it's called reaction progression is so helpful to put a frame of reference around how you actually think and then mimicking that in a character so that, you know, does this feel right or does this not feel right? We're going to get into like when it doesn't feel right, it's probably because one of these reactions are out of order. They happen in a specific course.
[03:48] Emily: Yeah. Or you're not clear on how they're feeling about one of these things.
[03:53] Rachel: Yeah.
[03:54] Emily: Okay, so what is a reaction progression? Reaction progression is basically something happens, right. A story stimulus happens. In real life, this would be like something happens to you, which is either an external trigger or an internal realization. So some kind of external stimulus prompts you to react or your character to react. The first thing that happens is you have a physical instinctive reaction. This is a feeling or an involuntary action. So your body or your character's body reacts to whatever just externally happened or whatever you just internally realized, right, which is still a stimulus. Then your brain kicks in and your brain says, oh my goodness, this is what this means, right? This is what this means to me. This is how I feel about this. And sometimes that can override what your body is saying, right? But first your body kicks in, then your brain kicks in, and then intentionality kicks in. So you or your character takes a conscious action or speaks or does something consciously in reaction to the story stimulus, right? So we have an instinctive body reaction. We have the brain processing what happened, and then we have the intentional choice to do something about it.
[05:23] Rachel: Yes. So remember when Emily was saying, like, don't overthink it. We're not saying that every single everything needs to follow this flow because you're going to get purple pros really fast. You're going to really balloon like what you're saying. But this is very helpful for you to consider. Why would my character think but then have a gut reaction?
[05:47] Emily: Well, they probably wouldn't.
[05:49] Rachel: They probably would have their gut reaction first and then do something about it because it follows this order. It's the stimulus. It's that physical instinctive reaction that you can't control. Then it's your internal processing, your character's thoughts, what are they thinking about this thing? And then it's their physical intentional choice. What are they choosing to do or not choosing to do because of what just happened? What do they have? So let's give you two examples. One of when these reactions are out of order and then one of when these reactions are in order. Because I think you'll be able to tell in your gut that it feels wrong on some way. When we tell you the out of order one, you're going to be like, oh, I can see why this might feel wrong. Then we'll explain how it's out of order. I'll read the out of order one go for it. Why did Sarah have to be so unreasonable? Ava jumped when Sarah slammed the door with a growl. Instead of following, she stormed out the back. So that's out of order.
[07:00] Emily: It's kind of hard to, like, you know, they're fighting. It's kind of hard to live through.
[07:07] Rachel: It feels it feels a little bit like, okay, but why did she have that thought before ava jumped when Sarah slammed the that is something's quite off there. So I'm going to read it one more time. Why did Sarah have to be so unreasonable? Ava jumped when Sarah slammed the door with a growl. Instead of following, she stormed out the back. Okay, now, Emily, you read it in order.
[07:34] Emily: Okay, so in order, Sarah growled and slammed the door. Eva jumped. Why did Sarah have to be so unreasonable? Instead of following, she stormed out the back.
[07:44] Rachel: Wow. Okay. That feels way better to, like yeah, me too. I feel like I had, like, a dissonance in the first one where it made my heart pound, and I was like, wait a second, something's wrong. Then you read the second one, and I was like, oh, actually, that does feel right.
[07:56] Emily: So let's break down. Why the second oh, sorry.
[07:59] Rachel: Go for it. Yep, let's break it down.
[08:01] Emily: So the second one, right, we have the stimulus happens first. Sarah growled and slammed the yep. Eva jumped. That's her physical instinctive reaction is she jumps at Sarah's abrasiveness. Really? Then she internally processes what happened. Why did Sarah have to be so unreasonable?
[08:19] Rachel: Right?
[08:19] Emily: Like, that's an internal thought and her physical intentional reaction, right. The conscious action she chooses to do is, instead of following, she stormed out the back. So we get to see that Eva is shaken by what Sarah just did and through her voice, right. Why does Sarah have to be so unreasonable after she just jumped? We get a little bit of nuance, right? We get this sense that Eva is not like she's got feelings, right? She's got deeper feelings about what's going on. She's not totally unaffected by what Sarah did, but she chooses to storm out the back anyway. So regardless of the fact that she's been affected by it and is hurt by it, does not lead her to follow Sarah. It leads her to leave and go at the back. And so we get a lot more character nuance in kind of what's going on.
[09:08] Rachel: Between the in the first order, which was the first example, which was out of order, we had Sarah's thoughts first, but nothing had happened. We hadn't seen the stimulus yet. We didn't know what it was. And then we had Ava's physical instinctive reaction before we even had the stimulus, which was Sarah slamming the door. So it was all out of order, and it just left us feeling confused of, like, we're trying to catch up. Wait, what's happening? What's going who who's unreasonable? Why? But when you put them in order. It is very grounding. It's very, oh, I see exactly what's going on. And because I'm not left confused, I have the mental brain power to read between the lines or to understand the feelings. Your brain doesn't have to work as hard to put these pieces of information in order because they already follow the natural order of how our bodies react to stimulus. For me, that was like the biggest, oh my gosh, I knew that. But when you see it laid out this way, when I felt it laid out this way and recognized, oh, of course I can't have these thoughts before I'm even showing what it is that happens. It helps you place things in your drafting and then go back and catch and be like, oh, okay, that's why this feels weird to me is because I put it out of order.
[10:33] Emily: Something I see really often is when people will put the physical intentional reaction first, so they'll show what the character decides to do and then they'll show us their thoughts about it. And there's a dissonance there as a reader, because you're like, wait, why are you doing that thing? And then you answer the question so you do answer the question of why they did the thing. But it's more helpful if the thoughts about why they're going to that show why they're going to do the thing happen before they do the thing. Because then you get to kind of live through, okay, we're processing what just happened and now we're acting. Instead of, oh, we acted. Let's explain why we acted.
[11:07] Rachel: Right.
[11:07] Emily: That takes us out of the lived experience of the character's.
[11:12] Rachel: Lived experience, yes. On top of that, this is where I think that this skill goes from intermediate to expert is by doing that on purpose, like what you just said, but putting the physical intentional first on purpose because you want to show a specific thing. So in our order, remember, I know you guys can't see it, which is why I'm repeating it. We have the stimulus, we have your instinctive reaction to the stimulus, we have your thoughts about what's happening, and then we have the conscious decision. Sometimes you might choose to have the stimulus and then an immediate intentional decision. But in that case, we're showing a very specific thing. We're showing a choice without thought, like we're showing on purpose that this character has jumped right to doing something. And my point here is that if you're going to do that, do it on purpose. So that you can make a point that maybe your character doesn't stop to think about things and maybe they are super impulsive, or maybe you want to. Maybe they have a physical instinctive reaction, like a gut twist or fists clenched or like biting lip. But then you have them make a physical instinctive choice that is kind of in the opposite of what they're actually feeling instinctually. And you can show dissonance between those two things to show that, well, this character does not react immediately to their feelings. They do something different on purpose. So here's the key point is if you're going to switch up how these things flow, do it on purpose. Do it to show something. Do it to lend to your characterization or do it to hide something. Sarah J. Moss, queen of hiding things from the reader. Everything. And Bryce's narrative in Crescent City has a hidden veil over. Like, this is where she gets to play with that. This is where Moss gets to play with what is it? Do we actually show the reader and what is it? Do we not show the reader on purpose? Maybe I don't want the reader to see my character's private thoughts right now because I'm trying to hide something great. But make that decision on purpose. Don't just leave it out because you're not sure what goes here. Like, know how this works, know how the reactions progress, and then you can really play with what are you going to put on the page, and what are you not going to put on the page?
[13:54] Emily: Yeah. So this is all, like, super cerebral. We are going to gift you guys our Show Don't Tell formula, which is a reaction progressions guide that has tons of examples. But I think the reason that this tool is so fun and exciting is exactly what Rachel just said. It allows you to make really intentional choices about how you portray your character's lived experience on the page. And there's so much characterization that you can infuse into your decisions about this stuff. So, for instance, one of the tricks that we have in the guide that we will link in the show notes is showing that dissonance between what the character is thinking and what they're doing, right? And so we have this example, and I'm going to read it to you guys and then break down kind of how it works. So we have mr. Hernandez was seriously asking her to do his job. Naomi just had to bide her time. The payoff would be exponential. If only she could keep control of her emotions now, it would be worth it. Yes, sir, I'd be happy to. She replied with a saccharine smile. Right. So this one works because there's dissonance between what she's thinking she's upset with this man right. And what she's doing, which is being very polite to him.
[15:16] Rachel: Yes.
[15:17] Emily: And so I think this is one of those it's one of the more basic examples of how you can use these reactions to really get into characterization, because we already are seeing from this paragraph that Naomi is someone who is willing to be uncomfortable and make other people happy in order to eventually get what she wants. Right. Like one paragraph. And we know that about Naomi. And so that's the power of really understanding these different types of stimuli. And how to use them together and against one another, and in order and out of order in order to put that lived experience that you want your reader to go through on the page in words.
[15:55] Rachel: Yeah. And like, with that example, specifically, imagine if we did not have is what it would this is what this example would read if we didn't have Naomi's thoughts. Mr. Hernandez was seriously asking her to do this job. Yes, sir, I'd be happy to. She replied with a saccharine smile. Totally different. Totally different. So we have the stimulus, which is Mr. Hernandez asking her to do something. And then if we go right to her physical intentional choice to say yes, we lose the dissonance. But we also lose a really big part of Naomi's characterization, which is that she does not want to do this. She's only doing it for her own means and purposes. Like, she's not doing it because Mr. Hernandez asked her to. She's doing it because she sees the end goal, and that's more important than her agreeing to this right now. And it gives her, I feel, like, a much more dynamic, a much more in depth version of a character versus just jumping right to her saying, like, yes, sir. Okay. You miss it. You miss out. Really, the point of this excerpt, which is that dissonance. Yeah.
[17:10] Emily: So I think the visuals are so much more helpful. So we're definitely going to link you guys that PDF, but the purpose of this podcast is to get you guys thinking about how are you organizing your sentences and your reactions and your characters experience on the page in a way that can show so much in between the lines.
[17:38] Rachel: Right.
[17:38] Emily: Really is what this skill can teach you how to do.
[17:44] Rachel: Yes. And remember, you don't need to be putting all of this on the page for every single thing that happens in your story. No, it's going to be way too much. But if you know what it is that your character is wanting to do or wanting to say, or as you as the author, what do you want to show through how they react to something? You can start to make those decisions of, like, okay, well, in this instance, I'm not going to show that physical instinctive reaction. I only want to show their internal processing. Or you might flip it and be like, I don't need to show their internal processing, but I do want to show their physical instinctive reaction and then their physical intentional choice of how they're going to act. We need some of it. I would say throughout the story, we're always going to be needing parts of this. That is what a story is as a cause and effect, an action and a reaction. But don't feel like you have to drop all of this all the time.
[18:48] Emily: Well, often, I think the way to sort of approach this is if the physical instinctive, the internal processing, and the physical intentional reactions are all pretty in line, right? Your character feels something in their body, they think something very similar, and then they do something that's pretty obvious as to what they're thinking and feeling. Then you can probably just jump to their intentional reaction, right? Because you don't need to explain it. And so oftentimes that can help, especially if you're an overwriter. This can help be like, oh, this thought shows clearly that this is how they're feeling in their body. I don't need to go there.
[19:22] Rachel: Exactly. Right.
[19:23] Emily: Or this feeling in their body means I don't have to include their thoughts. We can just keep moving forward. And so this can help you figure out how can you trim down, but also, where is the dissonance? Because that's what gets really interesting. And so where are their body reactions and their thoughts not lining up? Where are their thoughts and their decisions not lining up to show through the dissonance to your reader what's really going on on a nuanced level with your like, that's the power of this tool. The purpose is not to have, like Rachel said, everything for every potential stimuli. That would be way overwhelming, but it's that dissonance we're looking for that's the interesting stuff you want to make sure is on the page, because if it's not, the reader will notice. We won't understand why they're doing what they're doing or why there's so much dissonance in what they're thinking and feeling and all that stuff. So you want to make that clear. And this can be helpful too. If your readers are like, I don't understand why your character is doing X.
[20:21] Rachel: Y, and Z or why they reacted.
[20:23] Emily: In this way, you're probably missing one of these, and you can go kind of weave it in.
[20:27] Rachel: Yes, exactly. Okay, so next steps. What should you do now? Go grab that PDF in the show notes. Read through it. It has tons of examples, and it's very visually helpful. Since we threw out a lot of terms today, it might be tough for you to contextualize them. Get the PDF, but then practice, like, go practice writing this. Take whatever scene you're working on right now, wherever you are at. Identify the story stimulus. What is the thing that happens? Is it something someone does? A random event? A noise? A piece of dialogue? New information? Is it a character realization that prompts a reaction? Like, what's the story stenos? So first identify that and then take us through practice writing these three remaining reactions. So, again, that first one is that physical instinctive reaction. The second one is internal processing, and the third one is physical intentional reaction. So put them all on there. I want you to practice writing all three in order to get used to what this feels like. Honestly, it will start to feel really natural. And then once you have a good sense of like, okay, I understand how my blood boiled is instinctive, and I understand how I shoved him is intentional. Once you get those kind of like muscle memories going, then you can play with changing up the order or leaving something out or showing the dissonance like we talked about. And we have all sorts of tips and tricks in that PDF guide. So go right now, flip up on your phone to the Show notes and tap it and then save it for yourself. Totally free.
[22:22] Emily: Enjoy. If you want to build a successful, fulfilling and sustainable writing life that works for you, you've got to get on our email list.
[22:30] Rachel: Sign up now to get our free email course, the Magic of Character X. After seven days of email magic, you'll have the power to keep your readers flipping pages all through the night.
[22:39] Emily: Link in the show notes.
[22:40] Rachel: We'll see you there. Bye.
