Source¹¹1 “Lecture #7: Short stories,” 2020 Creative Writing Lectures at BYU: Brandon Sanderson on Writing Science Fiction and Fantasy, YouTube video (Mary Robinette Kowal, 2020). 

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Novels are about immersion, while short stories about delivering an emotional punch.

MICE quotient:

• Milieu: From entering a place, through having trouble navigating, to exiting.
• Inquiry: From having a question, through having trouble finding answers, to getting an answer.
• Character: From angst through backfiring change to happiness.
• Event: From status quo through status quo disruptions to a new status quo.

Wizard of Oz as an example: character story opens (Dorothy is dissatisfied with her life), event happens (tornado), milieu (welcome to the new land), then inquiry (what do the Ruby slippers do?). To close: The Ruby slippers will bring you home (end inquiry), Dorothy leaves the world (end milieu), arrives back home (end event) , Dorothy realizes adventure is in her back yard (end character).

Stories that feel like they end over and over again likely have the endings out of order.

Exercise

250-word flash fiction.

Opening: Meet character and make promises to the reader.

First three sentences:

• who (e.g. jockey)
• where (e.g. coaster)
• genre (e.g. sci-fi)

For location: Add sensory detail
For character: Add action to what they are doing
For genre: Add genre-specific and unique detail ASAP

Hydraulic fluid dripped out of the roller coaster’s AI straight onto Chelsea’s jockey ID. Where the heck was that leak?

Maximum two characters and one location.

Story length predictor:

L = ((C+S) * 750 * M) / 1.5

L: Length of the story
C: Number of character
S: Number of scenic locations
M: Number of MICE threads

Next two sentences: What is your character trying to do and why, and then what is stopping them?

If she didn’t get the coaster back online before the race, she’d have to forfeit her entry money. Not a [god damn] suggestion from the troubleshooter on her heads-up display had isolated the problem.

Add conflict; make things go wrong. Knock the character down and bring them up again. Try-fail cycle: yes-but, no-and.

Next: Five sentences.

It was time to improvise. Chelsea stuck her hand into the AI’s guts and traced the slippery fluid as far as she could go. The interior of the roller-coaster was still cold from sitting in the cryo bay. Condensation clung to the walls and mixed with the hydraulic fluid coating her fingers. She closed her eyes, trying to imagine the interior as she ran past the junction box and sudden heat stung her fingers. Chelsea jerked back, cracking her head on the toolbox behind her. [god damn] it all to [hell].

Psychology: three-quarter effect.

Try-fail cycle ends, and now it is a try-succeed: yes-and, no-but. Resolution is coming. In a real story (not flash fiction) there would be more iterations.

Next: five sentences.

Shaking her hand, she glowered at the roller coaster.
“You know, if I have to forfeit this entry money, I’m going to have to sell you just to pay rent, and you’ll probably wind up in scrap.”
She reached into the chassis again.
“Please, please let me find the leak.”
Her heads-up display lit up with what looked like a diagnostic message, from the AI that was supposedly offline.
“The leak is from the thermal coupler in my right braking mechanism, but fluid dynamics make it appear to come from the manifold.”
Chelsea’s mouth dropped open.
“If you knew that all along — ?

Problem is solved now, but is not satisfying yet. MICE elements are not yet closed. Again, who+where+genre. Things have shifted over the course of the story, so draw a line under it. What has changed?

Again:

• Who: action or reflection
• Where: sensory detail
• Genre: specific and unique detail (maybe more mood/tone than genre)

She closed her eyes, cursing her own stupidity.
Three years as an AI jockey and you’d think that she would remember that even in a roller coaster, the temperamental things needed the magic word.
Next time she’d say please sooner.