Motivation and Reaction:

It's the secret spice to your novels, plus llamas

Photo by Gilles DETOT on Unsplash

When I talk about novel structure, I talk a lot about Dwight Swain who wrote Techniques of the Selling Writer.

Swain has some really cool elemental aspects that he talks about and no, they don’t have to do with inciting incidents or the climax or the Save the Cat Beat Structure.

Dwight Swain’s Motivation-Reaction Unit (MRU) theory is basically the idea that character reactions should follow a logical order: first the stimulus (motivation), then the reaction (which itself unfolds in a logical sequence: feeling → reflex → action → speech).

Below the paywall (sorry, it’s the way to try to encourage me to keep doing this and others to value my thoughts while also buying puppy food) is more about this, an exercise to help understand it, a place to submit and potentially other things.