TECH: The M.I.C.E. quotient?

[mbarker]

Original posting 2021/9/1

Over here, https://writingexcuses.com/2021/08/29/16-35-what-is-the-m-i-c-e-quotient/ is starting a series digging into the MICE quotient. You may have heard of this, it originated with Orion Scott Card some time ago. Basically, the notion is that stories are built around four elements, milieu, inquiry (idea originally, but...), character, and event. Typically, a milieu story thread starts when the character goes into some place and ends when they leave. Inquiry starts when the character asks a question and ends when they find the answer. Character? Who am I up to some kind of self-understanding. Event starts with something disrupting the normal and ends with either a return to the old normal or establishing a new normal. Now, in between these bookends, you get conflicts. Something keeps the character in the milieu, something keeps the character from finding the answer, something keeps the character from changing, or something blocks achieving a norm of some kind.

Anyway, it's one approach to stories. And Writing Excuses is going to dig deep into the framework, the elements and how they fit together, plus how you can use them to guide your writing...

I may have to dig out my copy of Orion Scott Card's book and review what he had to say about it...

Oh! For an exercise, take a short story you are working on or have written, and try to identify the MICE elements at work in it. Can you identify where you start a thread, and where it ends? Do you have them nested, so the inner ones end before the outer ones?