You know, these things. I hadn't heard about MRUs until I finished a first draft a while ago. I'm contemplating doing a pass just to restructure the whole thing into MRUs, but it sounds absolutely exhausting and I'm not entirely sure it would be worth the effort. I'm always leery of claims that someone has "cracked the code" or found some sort of magical shortcut to good writing. But this sounds about as legit as it gets. Has anyone done this? A rewrite specifically, or a whole draft (nearly) entirely in MRUs? I'd love to hear about it!
I mean.... fine for someone with a very plain and pedestrian delivery of information. Taking this idea as gospel, though, makes the work of writers like Samuel R. Delany impossible to contextualize. He does not write in this linear fashion - at all - and is one of the giants of Science Fiction, pulverising the wall between genre lit and literary fiction. I know that Swain has his devotees, but I don't, as a rule, go to any church of any ilk.
Yes, everything I write is in MRUs. If you look at any of my workshop pieces, you will see I follow the theory religiously.
I've honestly never heard of MRU's before now, but I'd be a little careful about using them. As it's described in the article, it seems like you have to have something happen, then your character does something about it. While, yes, a good deal of the time this will happen, if if you do it literally every time your character does anything it seems like it would remove any autonomy on your characters part and turn them into purely passive characters. I don't think you really have to explain an inciting incident for why a character just ate a tube of chocolate chip cookie dough. Sometimes people just do things for no clear reason.
I'm unclear on how you could use this as a guide for organizing everything. I'm just seeing it as, "Pay some attention to cause and effect, and don't flip them for no good reason."
It does kind of sound like one of those gimmicks you see in a lot of novice writing books. "How to write and sell your novel in 10 days! The one trick that will make you a master."
Hm. I'm turned off by the very first line A skim of the article tells me that this is honestly pretty basic stuff. It seems like it might be useful for newbies to think about, but, at the risk of sounding super conceited, it's not the kinda thing I would put much stock by. Certainly I wouldn't do a rewrite focusing on it.
I have to stand up for this advice (though it might not be popular). K.M. Weiland has a few awards towards her books (I own one of her books), and I feel it would not be wise to ignore her advice so easily. I think MRUs are a wonderful device, and I highly encourage you, Clement, to try to write out a single draft using them. They have helped me greatly, in terms of knowing what I plan on putting into my paragraphs, and I believe they can help you. If you have any questions in regards to using them, please feel free to ask me.
I'm not saying that it's bad advice, I'm just saying it's gimmicky. I admit my familiarity with MRUs is not great, but from what I can gather, it basically boils down to: 1) have something happen to your character, 2) have your character react in some way, 3) try not to confuse the reader in the process. It's like a rebranded version of "write your character up a tree and then throw rocks at them," but given a jargoney sense of legitimacy.
Hah! No, please, tell us what you really think. I suppose I could just try it for myself, but is it worth the effort? Did it take you a long time to just start doing them or do you still think about it and do a pass? How exactly did it make your writing better?
Is it worth learning proper Grammar, and how to employ foreshadowing, symbolism, and irony? Learning MRUs will help you learn how to write a paragraph. It took me 1-2 months, but I write them now without even thinking about it. The true strength in learning how to write in MRUs is to help avoid paragraphs that look like this: "Margie saw a bear and ran. As Margie ran, the bear gave chase. Margie shouted, "Please, someone help me!" Seeing a tree, Margie ran to it and began to climb." Every sentence has the word 'Margie.' If you go to any workshop, you will see a writer that has every sentence in their entire piece naming the MC. I find this habit very off putting, and will stop reading less than ten sentences in. The part I feel MRUs really help is that the Motivating sentence CANNOT reference the MC at all (the exception being Dialogue). Training yourself to write sentences that do not reference your MC is something some people need to do.
Well, sounds like I've got nothing to lose by giving it a go. Thanks for the insight. I didn't know opinions on this were so divided!
I just don't see how I'd need the "MRU" concept to avoid writing that sort of paragraph. Maybe there's something both valuable and non-obvious inside the MRU concept, but so far what seems valuable seems really obvious.
There are some people, even on this forum, that if you tell them to write a sentence or -God forbid- a paragraph that doesn't mention their MC, they just can't do it. I whack people all the time in the Workshop for this. - There are three things the MRU helps people learn. 1. Sentences that don't mention their MC. 2. The Reaction order. 3. Logic (making sure that the previous paragraph some how links to the next paragraph). All these things might seem 'simple,' but to some people their chapters seem to have no organization, They all have the 'MC in every sentence problem, and I've even whacked a few people who wrote something along the lines of: "A bee stung me. I said "You bastard," Then I felt the pain." (You get stung by a bee/wasp you feel the pain first, then shout at the damn bee, not the reverse.) All these things might sound like basic knowledge, but a lot of people make these basic errors all the time. If I say 'Learn to write MRUs' because it fixes these three problems (and maybe more), was it such horrid advice?
If that's all it does, no. I just get suspicious of the way that advice propagates. Like my pet peeve--the mortal terror of passive voice, leading to a mortal terror of the word 'was', leading to a mortal terror of past progressive tense, etc., etc. When a concept is summarized to a tidy bite-sized thing, it seems to result in badness. That might not be the case here. I just get suspicious.
All advice inevitably gets boiled down to bite sized chunks, and all of those chunks inevitably get overapplied or misunderstood, or otherwise misused. I think it's just inherent in the medium of giving advice.
I am curious about something. How exactly does writing in MRU units keep you from mentioning the character in every sentence?
This is a great question. The rule is the Motivating sentence can't mention the MC. Example: Incorrect: The Bear ran after me. Correct: The Bear charged forward. -
