Motiavtion-Reaction Units in Creative Writing

Motivation-Reaction Units in Creative Writing

I present a review that I hope is both educational and cautionary.

A common criticism of Dwight Swain's Techniques of the Selling Writer and one found herein is that his approach to writing is reductionistic, and although useful for churning out works of genre fiction, these works tend not to illustrate the mimetic potential of art representing life through literary writing. Swain's advice is useful to beginner writers or those who do not have their grips with writing. The writing in Swain's handbook has been infinitely useful to the writer, but critical thought requires analysis of both positive and negative qualities, without bias, of the writing. Think of the following as a commentary in review of the basic tenets of Dwight Swain's prescribed advice.

Swain advises that to write a good story, the writer must have an understanding of motivation-reaction units and their manipulation, whether it be the shaping of motivation-reaction units from words, or the shaping of MRUs into scenes and sequels. The writer must also have an understanding of how to shape those scenes and sequels into story pattern, and then create the kind of characters that give a story life.

Feeling is a thing that is built and manipulated by the manipulation of motivation and reaction. One might wonder what motivation and reaction may mean. A motivation, to Swain, is a stimulus that elicits a response from a character, while the reaction would be what the character does in response to the stimulus. The motivation-reaction paradigm is used to further establish scenes and sequels.

The components of motivation-reaction are meaningful to fiction and the critic does not mean to misportray his position as disapproving. However, the strictness with which one applies motivation-reaction is the exact degree to which writing will become formulaic. Swain comments aptly that these motivation-reaction units can be the means for manipulation of feeling, however this is because, in the critic's opinion, the motivation reaction units are composed of words that themselves have senses as well as connotations and emotional valence. It would be the critic's advice to apply the use of motivation-reaction units as (broadly) stimulus with (broadly) response, meaning that the writer should consider the flexibility of what is considered motivation and what is considered a response to that motivation.

Limited is the mimetic potential of the creative writing that is churned out by writers who seek only to motivate their characters and watch their plotted reactions. Attention to the writing and the seaming together of different constituent elements of fiction is necessary. With even the construction of motivation-reaction units being prescribed, how can anyone hope for literary innovation?

It follows that Swain's fundamental construction is composed of motivation-reaction units in terms of scene and sequel, where scene is constructed of goals, conflicts, and disasters, and sequels composed of reactions, dilemmas, and decisions. The critic would offer the same point, that this writing can only by nature be formulaic and would foster little innovation. Grouping into story pattern where there are arcs, both in terms of character development and in terms of plotual advancement, inextricably so, can only result in completed formulae. In conclusion, the critic would ask the reader to consider what his intentions in writing are, salability or artistry?