Milieu, Idea, Character, Event.
Four types of stories that we are all familiar with, even when we don’t entirely realise it.
Milieu, Idea, Character, Event.
Together, they form the MICE Quotient.
The MICE Quotient is a great tool to use. It is a concept that came from the books: Character and Viewpoint and How to Write Science Fiction, both by Orson Scott Card. Each letter in MICE stands for a type of story that exists, mainly milieu, idea, character, and event. Below I’ll describe each one of those four stories, the elements in each of them, and then give examples, but first, let’s get some simple explanations:
Milieu: This story is about the world in which the story takes places in.
Idea: This story is about some information that people are looking for or a question people are looking to answer.
Character: This story is about a character; why they are the way they are and how they act.
Event: This story is about something happening, why it happens, and the consequences of it happening.
Milieu:
A milieu story is a story about the world rather than the characters or events. The story introduces a strange new world to the reader and examines that world through events or characters, but those are not necessarily important. The story usually immerses the reader into the strange world as fast as possible and usually ends with the characters coming out of their new world to the ordinary world. There could probably be a twist in the story in which the characters stay in this new world. The world is bizarre in nature and it’s bizarre to the characters. The characters are normal and react as normal people would.
Writing a story like this depends on how well you can create a world that’s more interesting than either the characters or events that happen to them. This is not to say that you should have bland characters and that nothing happens, but to rather include the world as much as possible to what is happening to the characters. Pure milieu stories are rare, which means there will be aspects of the other three types of stories in them. The important thing to remember is that the world should be treated as important.
Examples of this type of story include Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Gulliver’s Travels, and I’d argue, The Chronicles of Narnia. These stories have characters who have motives and grow, but they change because of the new worlds they enter and the way those worlds function. To a lesser extent, Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, and Harry Potter could fall into this category as well because they all have fantastic world-building, but I’d argue there are more important drives in those stories than entering new worlds.
Idea:
An idea story is a story about getting information or answering a question. Idea stories revolve around a concept or mystery that needs to be examined or solved. Again, characters are important, but the main focus is the answers they seek. The story comes to a close after the information has been received, or the mystery has been solved, or the idea has been sufficiently examined.
Examples of this type of story include The Da Vinci Code and the Millennium series (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo). Most murder mystery stories fall into this category. I would also argue that A Story of Life by Ted Chiang, the story that inspired the film, Arrival, falls into this category too, as the story’s main drive is the idea of language, and then determinism.
Character:
A character story is about a specific character. This story follows the character and examines them. It explores who they are, how they behave, and how they became this way. Maybe they can enter a new world, or be investigating a mystery, or go on an adventure because of an event, but these specific stories care about the character and their arc. The character grows and changes during the course of the story, and finds themselves in the end. The character in this type of story is usually in a bad place, either dissatisfied by something or just disillusioned in general.
The character in these stories must be completely characterised. Not only must they be well-rounded, but they must be well-defined enough for readers to understand what their nature is and how it came to be that way. Not every character must be like this, but the main character, as well as those closest to them, must be characterised with far more detail than any other story. After all, it will be these characters, and their actions and motivations, that move the story forward.
Good examples of this are anything with a proper character arc. But for the sake of some good examples, I’d say Call Me By Your Name is one, as well as an excellent and absolutely depressing book called A Little Life (I’d suggest reading it and then sitting in a dark room crying for 24 hours).
Event:
Event stories seem to be the most common of the four categories. Something happens, and then the story unfolds. While all stories have events, the event in question changes the natural order, the status quo (much like Todorov’s Theory of Narrative). These stories usually end when the characters succeed in returning the world to normal or fail to do so.
Because the event is what is important here, you can characterise your characters as much as you want, but personally, I’d say characterise them as much as you can. The reason for this is that while the event may be interesting, I think your characters will be doing a lot of work pulling the reader forward. Whereas milieu has fantastical lands to use and idea stories can draw intrigue by pursuing the answers to the questions, the event story must show how drastic the event was, and this can be done better through characters.
Examples of event stories are Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (receiving his letter from Hogwarts), Eragon (finding the dragon egg), and Star Wars (finding Leia’s message and the death of Luke’s family).
Event stories can be wide-reaching. Note that all the examples given all include some kind of world-building, or mystery that needs solving. In fact, I’d say Rowling does a good job of encompassing all four categories in the Harry Potter series at one point or another. The first few books, especially Chamber of Secrets, are written as mysteries that need answers; there’s characterisation across all seven books; and the world is just as entertaining as the story. In other words, while the events may be important, event stories can use other aspects of MICE.
The MICE Quotient is an essential tool to find out what kind of story you are writing. You do not have to rigidly stick to whatever of the four your story falls under, and can use elements from the other three to help build the story.
Use the MICE Quotient to help you understand what your story is. Because if you don’t, your readers won’t either.
And remember, every great story started with just one line.
Thanks for Reading, Fellow Writers!
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For more information on MICE, you can go here or here.
Or, you can access the Writing Excuses podcast on it here.
There is also another Writing Excuses where they recap it, but with a slight change. You can find that here.
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