writercises | Entries tagged with event

Original Posting 2022/01/15

Let's see... I have a random prompt generator, stocked with various bits and pieces. Tell you what. Pick a number between one and six, and see what you got!

1. Problem: Psychosocial and environmental problems. Genre: Overcoming the Monster: Hero and the bad guy. Surprise: abduction, eloping, running away. Oddment: a quilted snake in the living room.
2. Problem: Christmas! Genre: Monster in the house. Plots: Mystery, elementary, my dear Watson. Oddment: dragon kittens in my backpack.
3. Character: firemen (emergency worker). Problem: death of a spouse. Genre: voyage and turn, boldly exploring. Surprise: ask/offer help. Oddment: pictures in the kitchen.
4. Character: private eye. Problem: runaway pet. Genre: whydunit. Surprise: revenge, good payback, forgiveness. Oddment: pictures in the trash.
5. Character: doctor. Problem: change of personal habits. Genre: Quest, seeking and finding. Plot: doing good, diplomatic, long or short fork when eating with elves. Oddment: a jar of plastic ants in the bathroom.
6. Problem: when you get engaged. Genre: tragic plot, failure of a strong character. Surprise: dark secrets, hidden abilities. Oddment: wallet in your luggage.

There you go! I left out some of the odds and ends from the generator, but I think there's enough there to get you started. Take those bits and pieces, add setting, characters, events, and so forth to your taste, and...

Write!

mbarker

Original posting 2021/10/1

So, over at https://writingexcuses.com/2021/09/26/16-39-deep-dive-into-event/ this week, they took a look at the fourth element in the M.I.C.E. Quotient, E for event. Event stories focus on disruptions of the status quo, externally driven conflicts. Start with something that upsets the status quo, and finish with either a restoration of the old or establishing a new status quo. Obstacles are when every action seems to push the status quo further out of whack, while complications are opening up different problems. Remember that while big events may be attractive, small events and sequences of events and consequences are interesting too.

So, milieu, inquiry, character, and event. Going into and getting out of a place, asking and answering questions, the journey of self-discovery around "who am I?", and last, but not least, external changes a.k.a. events. Most stories involve more than one of these, although the emphasis is often on one of them. There also is a nesting to them, so the hero goes into a strange place, where he encounters various events and has to deal with them, or perhaps struggles with their identity or even looks for the answers to various questions, and eventually gets out of that strange place again. Or perhaps your detective is trying to find out who done it, and has to deal with various and sundry events along the way? There are certainly various ways to mix the four elements together in your stories.

Does anyone use this framework for your stories? Perhaps in outlining, or in revision? Maybe as a guideline while happily cranking out the words?

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?

mbarker

Original Posting April 13, 2018

Whoops! Hope everyone is happily chewing away on their 6x6 stories? I’ve been being frustrated by a computer that seems to want to reboot, blue screen and all that, at the most inconvenient times! I’m actually writing this on my iPod, and I despise hunt-and-peck typing with my finger.

So, just thinking about MICE (or MACE, according to some folks). MICE was Orson Scott Card’s version. Milieu, idea, character, and event. Which, as I understand it, was kind of to identify which thread dominated, say at the beginning of a story, and then you need to have a matching closure at the end of your story. Of course, you may have layers, like an onion, with matching pieces at each end. MACE? Oh, in place of idea, slide in ask and answer. So if the beginning is a character problem, the ending should resolve that, or at least go back to it. Similarly for the other three areas.

Aha! Over here

https://www.writingexcuses.com/tag/mice-quotient/

There's even a summary chart about MICE.

Milieu: enter new place, struggle to get out, survive, understand, and... exit new place. Ye olde quest, more or less.
Inquiry? IDEA. Oh, well. Ask a question (mystery!), get clues and info, and... answer the question!
Character. Unhappy with self. Try to change, New understanding of self.
Event. Disruption, upset, floods, fires, and other calamities. Fight! Chase! Excitement! Status quo resumes (new or old). Action galore!

Or take a look at this summary

http://www.sfcenter.ku.edu/Workshop-stuff/MICE-Quotient.htm

or one of the many, many other writeups available from your friend and mine, Google!

So, there you go. Now layer those, and poof! Write a story!

Now, this does raise a problem. How do you match them up? One answer, that JC, a member of this writing group, used to recommend, was to write the later part first, such as the ending, then go back and do the lead up to it! After all, the reader doesn’t know what order you wrote it in, all they see is the final product. So write it out of order, then shuffle the pieces into the right order.

Write the ending first? Then do the beginning and middle that leads to that? Sure, why not? I mean, often the end is the exciting idea that grabs you, so go ahead and enjoy it!

And meanwhile, I need to crunch a bit. So, go ahead, write it in whatever order works for you, the splinters of milieu (aka setting or world building), idea (oh, fascinating!), character (who are these people?), and event (what happened? And then.,,). Then rearrange!

And when the ends meet, hey, tell us that story!

mbarker

Original Posting March 14, 2018

So, let's see. A likable character faces opposition or conflict, and by his or her own efforts, achieves a worthwhile goal. So we need a character, opposition and conflict, efforts, and a goal? Or maybe start with the character and goal, then the plan to get there, and finally the opposition or conflict, what's going to be in the way?

Heck, start with any of these. Characters, Setting, Plot, or even theme or purpose. Then brainstorm away at the others.

Here, start with a character. Who are they? What are their goals and desires? What are their problems and faults? In your story, what changes?

Or maybe a setting? Where are we? What are the scenes and locations?

Of course, plot is a really common starting place. What threatens the character's self-image? What can go wrong, and what will it cost? What blocks the character, and what are they going to do about it? Think about the events you want to have in your story, and especially the climax. Are you going to have some small try-fail cycles, bumps along the road, before you get to the climax?

Another simple plotting approach is:
1. What is the moment of change that starts the story moving?
2. What is the hook for the reader?
3. What is the story problem?
4. What is the first doorway of no return? What is the point where the main character, the protagonist, commits to solving the problem?
5. What are the complications that they are going to face in trying to achieve that?
6. What is the second doorway of no return? What is the twist, the revelation, the point where the main character figures out how to achieve their goal, and starts into the climax?
7. What is the ending? What is the climax, the character change, and the answer to the story problem?
8. Now go back and consider, what backfill and back story do you need?

Another way to brainstorm about it is answering questions. Here's one set:

1. Where are we? Setting!
2. Who is there? Characters, with their pluses and minuses.
3. Where are we going? What are their goals and motivations?
4. What blocks them? What are the obstacles or opposition?
5. What are they going to do? What are their plans?
That's all kind of background. The story itself revolves around:
6. What's the hook? What's the story question or problem?
7. What background do we need?
8. What's the build up? Lay out the scenes, the information, the turning points, the reveals, the surprises.
9. What's the climax? What is the character change, the plot resolution, the story answer?
10. What is the purpose or theme? You may not be able to answer this until you have written at least a first draft.

Or maybe you want to think about genres? Lots of different lists, here's one from Save the Cat:
1. Monster in the house: a monster, and the house. Something scary, and a restricted field.
2. The Golden Fleece: we are on a quest to get…
3. Out of the bottle: wish fulfillment.
4. Dude with the problem: ordinary guy, extraordinary circumstances
5. Rites of passage: life changes
6. Buddy love. Love stories, odd couples, mismatched…
7. Whydunit. A mystery by any other name.
8. The fool triumphant. The underdog wins!
9. Institutionalized. What happens inside.
10. Superhero. An extraordinary person in an ordinary world.

Take your character, your seed of a plot, or whatever, and try running it into some of these questions, or maybe brainstorm how you would write it up as several of these genres. Remember, it's still early, so you've got time to kick the tires. Next week, we'll start having to actually write a story every week! But, I'll let you do a little preparation if you want to. That way you just have to pick out a story idea and sit down and write, write, write.

Whoosh! All that for a little story? Well, you don't have to. You can just sit down and write by the seat of your pants. Many great writers swear that they just sit down and open a vein, and... the words come. The arguments between seat-of-the-pants writers (pantsers, or discovery writers) and outliners have been going on probably since the first cavemen sat down to tell a story over that new invention, the fire. Frankly, do whichever works for you. Some people swear that thinking about it, outlining and planning, takes all of the excitement and interest out of it, and they just can't write a story once they've done that. Others find that blank page terribly intimidating, and a little bit of brainstorming and planning helps reduce that terror.

And just think! Starting Sunday, March 18, we'll all be scratching our heads and churning out a story (or 6!). So watch for the submissions, starting March 24! Right here on Writers! Okay?

Okay? So who's with me? 6 stories. Any size, but write a story, okay?

Get on your marks...

mbarker

Original posting Nov. 2, 2017

Recently, on Writing Excuses http://www.writingexcuses.com/ , they offered a slightly modified version of the venerable Orson Scott Card MICE quotient. MICE, as you probably know, is Milieu, Idea, Character, and Event. However, the new acronym is MACE -- Milieu, Ask/Answer, Character, and Event.

Briefly, they suggested that in a Milieu story, the basic plot movement is going into some place new, and then returning from that new place. Obviously, you can play lots of variations, but the notion of going into something new -- a place, a situation, a kindergarten, whatever -- and exploring that, then returning or at least exiting that new place is the basic plot fo the Milieu.

An ask/answer story, on the other hand, starts with a question. Who dun it, of course, is the well-known mystery question, but there are other questions, too. You might fall back on who, what, where, when, why, and how, the six honest serving men of Kipling's fame. Anyway, ask a question, who did it, what if, where are we, when did it happen, why, oh, why do we keep asking these questions, and how long can this go on... and then answer it, one way or another. Heck, sometimes you may answer it several different ways, just for the fun of it.

The character? Well, these usually start with a problem with the self, something is wrong with our image, our identity. They explore the person, and eventually result in a new self image or identity, or sometimes simply in acceptance of the self that we have.

Then, of course, there are event stories. The typical starting point for these is a broken status quo, something is wrong with the world! After this and that, we eventually achieve either a new status quo or possibly acceptance of the status quo as it is, broken and all.

Whoosh! Four threads that you might use in your Nanowrimo plotting on the fly! After all, you can mix these up, although normally they come nested -- one inside the other. Incidentally, you might consider something I noticed, which is that milieu and event stories are largely external oriented -- go someplace new, a broken status quo -- while ask/answer and character tales tend to be more internal oriented, often focusing on the internal growth and change of the characters more than the external disasters.

Anyway, something to play with while you are grinding out the words, grinding out the words, we shall have rejoicing, grinding out the Nanowrimo words!

Write?

mbarker.livejournal.com

Originally posted 31 August 2010

Over here, http://www.writersdigest.com/article/4-story-structures-that-dominate-novels/ there's an article by Orson Scott Card talking about "The Four Story Structures That Dominate Novels." Basically, Card suggests that there are four elements that help determine the structure of our stories. While every story has some of each, usually one dominates.

What are the four elements? Milieu, idea, character, and event (MICE). And what are the structures or implications for the story?

Structure one, milieu. This is a fancy term for the world -- the planet, society, weather, etc. The usual structure is very simple "An observer who sees things the way we?d see them gets to the strange place, observes things that interest him, is transformed by what he sees, and then comes back a new person."

So the story begins when the character arrives in a new place, and ends when the character leaves.

Structure two, idea. "Idea stories are about the process of seeking and discovering new information through the eyes of characters who are driven to make the discoveries. The structure is very simple: The idea story begins by raising a question; it ends when the question is answered."

Card points out that most mysteries follow this structure. The story begins with a crime. The question is who did it and why? The story ends when the identity and motive are revealed.

Structure three, character. Character stories are about transformation of a character's role in communities that are important to the character. They're about who a character is. The story begins when the main character breaks out of one role and begins the process of change. It ends when the character finds a new role or sometimes settles back into the old one.

Structure four, event. Something is wrong with the world. Someone steps up to struggle with that. And when they change the world, it ends.

So simple, and yet... having MICE in your stories can help?

As an exercise, you might look at some of your favorite stories. Which of the four do they emphasize? What about your own writing? Which do you prefer?

Who moved the cheese?

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The Place For My Writers Notes

Entries tagged with event

EXERCISE: Random Prompts?

TECH: The E in MICE is EVENT!

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

EXER: Making Ends Meet?

TECH: Getting Ready for 6x6? (800 words)

TECH: Nanowrimo bits and pieces...

TECH: MICE in your stories?

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