Learning to Write MRUs

I’ve mentioned in a past post that my efforts to learn to write Scenes and Sequels were derailed briefly by…well…let’s just call it a side quest. You see, many of the articles that explained the Scene-Sequel technique referred to another technique that many use as part of their writing process: the MRU (motivation-reaction unit). Honestly, this is a fancy way of saying, “Hey, dummy, write cause and effect!” (Seems obvious. Isn’t always. I’ve now seen some scary examples of this.)

For many writers, Scenes and Sequels are made up of these MRUs, and if you put enough of these together, you eventually end up with a story that makes some form of sense. People might even read and enjoy your story. (No promises.)

All right, so…what is an MRU? It’s a basic action sequence made up of two parts: the motivation and the reaction.

• Motivation – an external, objective stimulus that can be experienced by at least one sense
• Reaction – the character’s subjective response to the Motivation in order: emotion; reflex action; rational thought/action

The MRU is pretty straightforward, because it’s how we actually respond to things. I know some of the articles pointed this out, but I didn’t actually get my mind around it until I realized trying to overthink my way into writing MRUs was just leading to writing how I normally write. I’ve always tried to write out how I would move through something, right down to the stage blocking. (And hearing professional writers use stage terminology to describe how they write has helped me understand and accept that I’m not a total weirdo for doing it. It helps me to see what’s going on in the scene I’m writing.)

When I was first reading about MRUs, I thought you were supposed to use them to build the entire story. And found out the hard way that’s not exactly true. I struggled for days trying to make MRUs work for my action-light stories, unable to figure out why they weren’t working, before I finally learned they’re for action sequences. I don’t write a lot of action to begin with, so practicing MRUs has been a frustrating process for me. I finally came up with the following and incorporated it into my daily writing habits so I have something to practice on.

My MRU Practice Routine

• Respond to oneword’s daily prompt. (I do it in my journal instead of on the site.)
• Rewrite the response into an MRU format. (Also in my journal.)

Feel free to steal that, or use it to create something that suits your own writing habits. And then let me know how exploring MRUs goes for you. Maybe you’ll find yourself frustrated like I was. Maybe it will be just the thing to help with a problem you’ve been experiencing in your writing. But I’m willing to bet you’ll find something useful in it.

 

Learning to Write Scene-Sequel

Like so many others, I spent the beginning of the year looking over what I had done last year and thinking about what I wanted to get done this year. I know I have a tumultuous relationship with my writing, and thought I was starting to turn things around. Really, I was deluding myself. While I got more written last year than I had in the previous five years combined, I wasn’t getting any productive writing done.

So I started my writing plans for this year by tabling every writing project I failed at working on last year. Then, I planned out a new daily writing practice schedule, focusing first on reconnecting with and strengthening my writing skills and letting my projects grow out of that recentering. Because somehow, things are easier for me if I feel like I’m learning and practicing something concrete. (I know you’re surprised.)

My first writing lesson: Writing Scenes (not to be confused with scenes) and Sequels.

I’ve heard people talk about Scenes and Sequels on writing blogs and in writing podcasts for some time now, but never actually looked into it. Now seemed as good a time as any, so I pulled together some favorite podcast episodes, added in some blog posts and articles, and jumped right in. It did require a small side trip (which I’ll get to later), but I think I’m starting to get the hang of things.

Scenes and Sequels are narrative units that work in pairs to create rhythms that encourage readers to keep moving through the story. The Scene consists of three parts: the Goal, the Conflict, and the Disaster. The Sequel also consists of three parts: the Reaction, the Dilemma, and the Decision. Breaking those down…

The Scene contains the action (or rising action) in the pair. It is composed of three parts that help keep that action building.

• Goal – what the character wants when they first come into this moment
• Conflict – the infamous try-fail cycle (It can be as simple or as complex as the situation requires.)
• Disaster – an obstacle appears that severely hinders the character’s ability to reach their goal (This does not have to be a literal disaster. I had a hard time wrapping my mind around that.)

The Sequel contains the reflection (or falling action) in the pair. It is composed of three parts that help the character process what has happened and figure out how to move forward.

• Reaction – what it says on the label; the character’s immediate response to the Disaster
• Dilemma – the character figures out what options they have moving forward, with no good options present
• Decision – again, what it says on the label; the character picks an option and runs with it, moving us into the next Scene

The nice thing about these two units, when used well, is that they really follow a logical flow while building in good opportunities for tension in a scene. And they build a cycle, which can help minimize writer’s block to an extent. If you’ve crafted a good Scene, it should lead into a logical Sequel, which if well-crafted leads into another Scene, and so forth and so on.

As I said, I’ve been playing with is for about a month now, and I think I’m starting to craft them without having to look up each step. I’m even starting to find some success with them. Try them out in your own writing and let me know how your own explorations go.

Why Tagging Matters For Online Writers

I was recently reading some Yu-Gi-Oh fan fiction (as I do periodically) when I came across an unfamiliar situation. Someone new to writing for the fandom, rather than look up established names for various ships, tagged their story with their own names for the ship they were writing. Three different names for the ship, plus a tag admitting they didn’t know how to identify the well-established ship in question.

I tend to surf this repository by tag because the fandom is usually flooded and I have narrow reading interests within the fandom. Because I know the proper name for the ship, I would have completely missed this story. I just happened to surf the general catalog that day and stumble across it. Anyone who surfs by tags would miss this story because it doesn’t use the long-agreed upon name for the ship.

The Perc’ahlia ship in the Critical Role fandom has a similar problem. When people first started writing fan fiction and creating fan art for this ship, there were at least half a dozen stabs at giving the ship a meaningful name that didn’t necessarily rely on a portmanteau. Again, those searching for fan work in this ship have to know not only Perc’ahlia, but also those other early contenders, or miss out on some potential gems.

In this day of social repositories and search engines, tags matter. To some degree, we all know this. We work with them enough on blogs and in these catalogs. We tag to identify fandom, genre, characters, topics, any potential triggers. The list goes on. We understand that it’s useful to label our work with these tags to help potential readers understand at a glance what’s in the story.

But we don’t always think about what it really means to tag. We forget that tagging in archive situations like these repositories is really setting up a way to help people interested in that tag find our contribution to the tag. This becomes evident when you see a tag that reads, “ireallyjustlovethishipandnobodyiswritingitsoidid” (yes, I have actually seen this tag), or something equally ludicrous. (I once saw a tag that was literally the writer rambling to see how long she could make the tag before she was cut off. It failed because it split between lines and caused anything after the break to form its own link.)

I think this practice comes from the sarcastic hashtag trend favored on Twitter, but it does nothing but clutter your tags list (and therefore your findability) on search engines and repositories. And the point of the game is to be found, or else you wouldn’t be tagging at all…or posting publicly online, if you want to be completely honest about it.

So, the next time you’re posting a story, be it original or fan fiction, by all means, think about the fandom, characters, genre, and potential triggers. But also take a moment to think about how readers might search for your story, and make sure your tags reflect how you want to be found.