The Mice Quotient

 

“Whoa, what is the MICE Quotient?!”

If that's what you're thinking after seeing the title, worry not - I'll walk you through it step by step in this article.

The idea was created by Orson Scott Card in his book “Characters and Viewpoint”. Orson pointed out four basic factors which can be found in every story out there, the factors being:

MILIEU

IDEA

CHARACTER

EVENT

In short, MICE. Originally, the second factor was called Ask/answer, making it MACE, but nowadays MICE is more commonly used.

I need to add one more piece of information Orson mentioned in his book: it's not only the presence of those factors that's so important, it's also the empathizes put on each of them and the balance between them. Don't worry, we'll get more into it later.

Let's now see what Orson meant by those mysterious letters and why they are so important in writing.

MILIEU

Perhaps the most mysterious of the four, what even IS milieu? In short, it's the world building you put in your story.

So, a milieu story starts when the MC enters the new world; and it ends when they return to their own.

In a story where you highlight the milieu, you will focus mainly on the world you created - how it works, why, how I came to be, what rules are leading it forward. If the milieu is the most important of the four factors, even the MC comes second to the world.

IDEA

An idea story starts when the MC stumbles across an issue they need to solve; and ends when the issue is solved.

What is the problem? How do we solve the problem? What obstacles appear on the way? What are the stakes? Those are the questions you'll focus on if your story is an idea-focused one.

Again, if the highlight is on the idea, the MC comes second - although it's still important to make them interesting, so we want to stick to seeing the resolution of their central issue.

CHARACTER

This story type is probably the easiest one to understand - the main focus is on the MC. They're unhappy about a part of themselves - or a part of their life. They try to change their ways and break out of self-loathing. 

The story ends with the MC successfully changing what was bothering them or understanding more of their struggle… or accepting some things cannot be changed.

EVENT

Don't get me wrong, events happen in pretty much every story out there; that's not all there is to an event story. The main highlight here will be the struggle to establish order in a chaotic, messy world. 

It starts when the character starts their efforts towards establishing order; it ends with them either succeeding or failing. 

Now we managed to get through each of the MICE factors Orson wrote about in his book. You can use this method to try creating new, interesting variations of telling a story, or simply to be more aware of what you're creating. After all, the MICE affects where your story starts, stops, and the kinds of conflicts it has. 

If you wish to learn more about the MICE Quotient, I strongly recommend listening to the Writing Excuses podcast episodes about it.