Zero to One Column by Chuck Heintzelman

In the previous column, Macro Story Structure, I discussed high level story structure, with an emphasis on the Scene/Sequel pattern Dwight Swain defined. In this column I’ll examine another concept I gleaned from Swain, Motivation/Reaction units, or MRUs for short.

While researching for this column I realized I’ve become lax in consciously using MRUs in my own fiction. MRUs are a tool I must keep on my writing toolbox’s top shelf.

Evoking an emotional response in the reader should be fiction’s primary goal. This is what entertains, what lets the reader leave their humdrum lives and go on an adventure. Emotion is what moves the reader. The key to creating this emotion is to have the reader live through a character, establishing an empathetic bond with the reader. By empathy I don’t mean feeling sorry for the character, although sympathy can be an element. True empathy is more than feeling pity, it is vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of the character (thanks Webster!).

In Techniques of the Selling Writer, Dwight Swain explains the MRU is the mechanism that creates feelings in your readers and helps them keep the feelings straight.

Here are the two parts to a MRU:

1. Motivation – What happens external to your POV character. The Motivation is always objective. It begins a cause-and-effect pattern.
2. Reaction – Your character’s reaction to the Motivation. This is from your POV character’s perspective. The Reaction is subjective. It is the effect.

Here’s a simple, two sentence example:

The deer froze, illuminated by the headlights. Bob gasped and slammed on the brakes.

Not the greatest prose (yeah, I’m using the deer-in-the-headlights cliché) but it illustrates my point. The first sentence is external to the character, providing the cause for the character’s reaction. The second sentence is Bob’s Reaction.

Turns out there’s logic and flow to the Reaction. It consists of three parts. Any of which may be omitted. The Reaction must flow in the following order:

1. Feeling. The immediate feeling the Motivation evokes in the character. The feeling must come first.
2. Action. The action the character takes. It follows the character’s “feeling” (if present).
3. Speech. What the character says or thinks. This must come last.

In the two sentence example above I only provided the Reaction’s Action portion. Let me expand the example to provide all three parts.

The deer froze, illuminated by the headlights. Bob’s heart skipped a beat. He gulped and slammed on the brakes. Mom’s gonna kill me if I wreck her new car.

Still, this paragraph won’t win any awards, but the Reaction’s three parts are all there. It is more compelling.

The reason the Reaction must be ordered is to mimic real life. Feeling occurs first, instantly, without conscious thought. Action comes next, taking a bit more time, possibly building upon the character’s feeling. Speech demands conscious thought and occurs slowest of all.

Try reversing the Reaction’s order in the example sentences:

The deer froze, illuminated by the headlights. Mom’s gonna kill me if I wreck her new car. Bob gulped and slammed on the brakes. His heart skipped a beat.

Yuck! What a stinker. Even worse, try reversing Motivation and the Reaction, putting the Reaction before the Motivation. Do this and your reader (if you have any left) will throw your book across the room.

Swain goes on to explain much more about the MRU. Here’s a few points he makes:

• The Motivation must have significance to your character.
• The Motivation must have pertinence to your story.
• The Reaction must be characteristic, reasonable, significant and pertinent.
• The character should actively react.

That’s all there is to MRUs. They’re a deceptively simple, yet powerful, technique.

Here’s a little word processor trick I’ve used to keep track of the MRUs in a first draft. (I’m using Microsoft Word, but this should work for most word processors.)

1. Create a new paragraph style called Motivation with a blue font.
2. Create a second new paragraph style called Reaction with a red font. Set the “Style for following paragraph” to be the Motivation style you just created.
3. Go back and edit the Motivation style, Make it’s “Style for following paragraph” be Reaction.

Now, as you write, each time you hit Enter to start a new paragraph you’ll automatically switch between Motivation and Reaction.

Until August, keep writing!