Using the Mice Quotient to Plot Your Novel

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Writing fiction involves countless themes, concepts, and ideas that often clash, overlap, and blend together. This creates stories that exhibit different levels of complexity and diversity.

In understanding how all of these elements create a whole, writers have devised several structures, frameworks, and theories that each emphasize a specific facet of writing. One of these is Orson Scott Card’s MICE Quotient, a technique used to categorize stories.

The MICE Quotient

The MICE quotient is a formula devised by Orson Scott Card, a science fiction writer best known for his Ender’s Game series. Not only is the MICE quotient a way to categorize stories, but it can also be used to determine how and where to start and end a story depending on its category.

MICE stands for Milieu, Idea, Character, and Event. All four elements are present in every story, to varying degrees. But there’s usually one that dominates the story and determines its overall shape.

Here’s a brief overview of these elements:

FactorFocusTypical BeginningTypical Ending
MilieuThe world where the story takes place.A character enters a strange new world.A character exits the new, but no longer strange, world.
IdeaA central question.A question is discovered or asked.The question is answered.
CharacterThe nature and development of one or more characters.A character is dissatisfied with their life or circumstances.The character either changes those circumstances or learns to accept them.
EventAn event or situation, including its causes and consequences.The status quo is disrupted.The status quo is either restored, replaced with a better one, or entirely destroyed.

Below is a more detailed explanation of each category.

Milieu

Milieu stories focus on the setting of a story. The milieu includes the physical location where the story takes place—a room, a city, a planet—and all the sensory details that come with it.

It also includes culture and society. Social expectations, customs, laws, and roles all play a part in how a character experiences and processes the world. Some stories have milieus that are highly detailed while others are more vague.

A typical milieu story goes like this: A character is sent to the setting where the story takes place. They move through this world, sharing its unique physical and social details with you. Once everything is shown, the character is either sent home or taken to a new place.

Usually, the character is from Earth so they experience the strange, new world with attitudes and perspectives familiar to you. And the less characterization there is, the easier it is for you to imagine yourself in a character’s place and instead focus on the world.

This kind of story is most common in science fiction and fantasy, where whole other worlds are explored. Some examples are:

Idea

An idea story focuses on information. It begins with a question and ends when that question is answered. The character’s goal is to then uncover and learn crucial information as the story progresses.

What they discover leads them to finally answer the central question. But sometimes the answer leads to bigger questions or reveals that the question was the wrong one to ask all along. The latter two require the character to restart the search.

The key to this type of story is that the audience is required to play the game as well. They work alongside the protagonist to obtain clues, investigate leads, brainstorm possible solutions, and eventually solve the puzzle.

Idea stories are mostly found in mystery fiction, where a crime is committed and must be solved. Here are some examples:

Character

Character stories focus on character transformation. There’s a tight focus on the main character as they develop personally and in the context of the world.

They start out dissatisfied with their current situation and set out to change it. They are either successful, willingly go back to their old life, or fail miserably.

This change can be internal, like when a miser turns generous, or the proud become humble. It can also be a change of circumstances, where the poor become rich, or the commoner becomes an aristocrat.

This desire for something better happens when part of their current life becomes unbearable. A grown man wants to get away from his domineering mother, or a woman wants to change the misogyny in her workplace.

Coming-of-age stories and most romances fall solidly in this category. Some examples are:

Event

Event stories focus on a change of situation, something that upsets what is already established in the world. There is imbalance in the world due to some sort of injustice, destruction, death, or evil.

This imbalance can happen on a micro or macro scale: an evil villain seeks to dominate the world; a rogue general has usurped the throne; or a crime goes unpunished or unavenged.

The story starts when the character becomes involved with whatever upsets the status quo. It ends with them either restoring balance, establishing something better, or failing the quest.

Thrillers, disaster movies, and apocalyptic stories are part of this category. Some examples are:

Nesting MICE

Now, MICE can refer to narrative threads that unfold across an entire novel but stories can also be considered as a sequence of micro-threads. A question can be asked and answered within one chapter. Or a single conversation can end up changing a character’s mind.

Mary Robinette Kowal, Hugo award-winning writer and follower of Card’s method, thinks that these factors “nest” within each other. So a story can start as an idea story, transform into a milieu story, and end up as a character story.

She also mentions that nesting threads operate much like HTML files, where the factors are structured in a FILO (first in, last out) format. Simply put, the factor that is first introduced is the last to be resolved. When outlined, a nesting thread may look like this:

  • <M> A man from Earth stumbles into a hole and finds himself in another world.
    • <E> The ultimate evil begins to move. The entire world is in danger.
      • <I> He learns that he’s the hero prophesied to save the land. Can he defeat the evil?
        • <C> The protagonist struggles with the people’s expectations on him.
          • Various adventures ensue.
        • <C> The protagonist finally accepts his destiny.
      • <I> “You had the power in you all the time. All you had to do was accept it.”
    • <E> The protagonist vanquishes the evil and restores peace to the land.
  • <M> He is finally able to return home.

Notice the italicized bullet point in the middle of the thread. Within these adventures are opportunities for more nesting threads. More complex stories can have ones that go several layers deep.

Kowal believes that this FILO structure is the easiest for readers to parse. Maybe it’s because what’s most fresh to the mind is being solved first.

Keeping Promises with Your Readers

Whenever you write a story, you give your readers a promise. In the first few paragraphs or chapters, you tell them what your story is going to be. The reader then forms expectations, which you need to meet or subvert in a satisfying way.

Let’s say you’re writing detective fiction. Opening the story with a murder makes it an idea story. The audience expects to learn who the murderer is and why they did it. But if you introduce the detective’s personal issues first, people will want to see these issues solved more than the mystery. This makes it a character story.

The MICE quotient helps you determine and keep the promises you give to your readers. It’s an easy way to pinpoint when and where you’re going off track. You’ll be able to understand your stories better, improve their plot structures, and correct plot holes.

Understand also that the four factors aren’t mutually exclusive. An event story can be a milieu story at the same time.

The factor that becomes dominant will likely depend on characterization. Different stories require different kinds of characters. Milieu stories can get away with minimal characterization, while character stories (due to their nature) needs to have extensive characterization.

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