Mid

Here's another snippet from The Pool Party. Where do we start to get information about how Rudy is feeling?

Rudy was in the kitchen slapping together a sandwich for his older sister, Estela. He owed her a favor. She had promised to do more yard work if he sneaked into the house to make a sandwich.

"Make it thick," Estela had told Rudy. "Three slices of bologna and some cheese."

Rudy layered the sandwich with only one slice of bologna, tomato, and potato chips. When he pressed his palm against the sandwich, the chips crunched. He liked that sound, and liked how the sliced tomato would bleed a faint pinkish juice. He peeked into the sandwich. The bologna looked like a tongue wagging at him.

The Pool Party(1993)

Rudy was in the kitchen slapping together a sandwich for his older sister, Estela. He owed her a favor. She had promised to do more yard work if he sneaked into the house to make a sandwich.

"Make it thick," Estela had told Rudy. "Three slices of bologna and some cheese."

Rudy layered the sandwich with only one slice of bologna, tomato, and potato chips. When he pressed his palm against the sandwich, the chips crunched. He liked that sound, and liked how the sliced tomato would bleed a faint pinkish juice. He peeked into the sandwich. The bologna looked like a tongue wagging at him.

The Pool Party(1993)

Rudy was in the kitchen slapping together a sandwich for his older sister, Estela. He owed her a favor. She had promised to do more yard work if he sneaked into the house to make a sandwich.

"Make it thick," Estela had told Rudy. "Three slices of bologna and some cheese."

Rudy layered the sandwich with only one slice of bologna, tomato, and potato chips. When he pressed his palm against the sandwich, the chips crunched. He liked that sound, and liked how the sliced tomato would bleed a faint pinkish juice. He peeked into the sandwich. The bologna looked like a tongue wagging at him.

The Pool Party(1993)

Rudy was in the kitchen slapping together a sandwich for his older sister, Estela. He owed her a favor. She had promised to do more yard work if he sneaked into the house to make a sandwich.

"Make it thick," Estela had told Rudy. "Three slices of bologna and some cheese."

Rudy layered the sandwich with only one slice of bologna, tomato, and potato chips. When he pressed his palm against the sandwich, the chips crunched. He liked that sound, and liked how the sliced tomato would bleed a faint pinkish juice. He peeked into the sandwich. The bologna looked like a tongue wagging at him.

The Pool Party(1993)

This snippet is basically an action scene. We:

Introduce the action (Rudy's making a sandwich).
Provide context (he made a deal with Estela).
Expand on the action (details about ingredients he chooses, pressing it together, how he reacts and perceives the sandwich).

Do you notice how this is the first time we've been told about a character's thoughts and feelings?

Rudy likes the sound.
He likes the pink juice.

We also get a point of view shot when he peeks into the sandwich: we see the bolgna the say way he does, like a pink tongue wagging at him.

"Aren't Estela's instructions an observable fact?"

"Make it thick," Estela had told Rudy. "Three slices of bologna and some cheese."

Good question, and you could argue that case—this is a close call. It certainly doesn't have the clues we talked about before: no judging, no modality, no metaphor.

However, my argument would be that Estela's instructions are a memory. They are not actually happening in this moment, so somebody is filling in the gap for us—either the narrator or Rudy.

Out of all the options, I'd argue for the one in the middle, which is that this is the narrator explaining to us how Rudy got to this situation.

We're focused on one character.
The narrator fills in gaps in the story to explain goals and motivation.
The narrator tells us how the character feels, but does it in a way that sounds relatively detached.
We get to perceive what the character perceives.

Which of these devices do we see in this orc siege example?

Garath-ek stood at the mouth of the sewer. The arsonists, led by Varguk Xog, had, under cover of acid smoke, driven a trolley of explosives to the entrance and triggered a detonation so great it tore out the iron bars along with a fair amount of the surrounding wall.

"There's your entrance," Varguk had told Garath-ek, dusting off his ears. "But I expect they'll know we're coming."

Garath hefted his axe and stepped inside, sniffing for men. The tunnel dripped and trickled and glistened with pooled filth. Garath-ek smelled rot, decay, and disease—and a sprinkle of rat and roach—but no humans. He grinned. He enjoyed this part of any battle, the anticipation of finally meeting your enemy face to face.