Showing your story to your readers instead of telling it is a cardinal rule in fiction writing, yet much easier said than done. One very effective way to change telling into showing is a concept called motivation-reaction units (MRUs). What are MRUs? They were first introduced by Dwight V. Swain, in his book Techniques of the Selling […]
MRUs Can Transform Your Writing
A search of the internet for advice on how write better fiction will lead to millions of links to articles about a wide variety of techniques that vary from learning the minutia of grammar to firming up your overarching theme. One technique, however, is both insanely simple and incredibly effective. It’s called the motivation-reaction unit, […]
Make each scene a little story
Here’s my writing advice for the day: make each scene a little story. What we want is a series of pearls that create a lovely necklace. A story, and therefore your scene, has a motivated protagonist (the point-of-view character), conflict, and some kind of resolution. Of course, it needs to have a hook at the […]