Concept
MICE threads
You might say: MICE quotient, story threads, nested plots
Four kinds of story thread: milieu, inquiry, character and event. Each opens and closes, and threads nest like Russian dolls.
- What it does
- Tells you how each thread must end, and that inner threads close before outer ones.
- Ask
- Which thread did I open first, and does the ending close it?
- Trouble
- The ending answers the wrong question, so the book feels unfinished.
Catalogue: Thread
- Milieu: Starts when the character enters a place and ends when she leaves it. A milieu thread opens when a character enters a place and closes when she leaves, not merely because a place appears.
- Inquiry: Starts with a question and ends when it is answered. Who wrote the list?
- Character: Starts with a character unhappy with who she is; ends when she changes or accepts herself.
- Event: Starts when the normal order breaks; ends when an old or new order is set.
Pattern
Sources
- Mary Robinette Kowal et al., “What Is the M.I.C.E. Quotient?”, transcript
M.I.C.E. is an organizational tool which categorizes story elements as Milieu, Inquiry, Character, or Event.
- Mary Robinette Kowal et al., “Nesting Threads in the M.I.C.E. Quotient”, transcript
Nesting threads, or first in, last out.
Use it on your project
teardown-apply: hold "MICE threads" (mice-threads) from the teardown at https://teardownatlas.com/fiction-writing/ against my project
Paste it into a coding agent that has the teardown skills.
An AI agent wrote this map with the teardown skill. It can contain errors: check the sources before you rely on a part. About and legal