Episode 115: Motivation-Reaction Units

The Writership Podcast Editing Tips For Fiction Authors

In this episode, fiction editors Leslie Watts and Kim Kessler critique the first chapter of Passage, a fantasy/women’s society novel by S. Thies. This week’s author submitted her scene in first- and third-person point of view, providing an opportunity for us to ask, how can you improve your scenes no matter which POV you choose? The answer is MRUs, that is Motivation-Reaction Units. If you practice writing these stimulus-and-response sequences within your scenes, your character’s reactions will make sense and be unique to them. And more importantly, your reader will get to experience the events of the story (as opposed to merely reading about them).