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How to Build Your Causal Chain
Build inevitability into your story
A strong causal chain is one of the most underrated components of a successful story. I wrote an article a while back on the importance of the causal chain. Now I want to provide you with a concrete method that you can use to fix your causal chain, or build it from scratch before you start writing a story.
In his essay “Narrative Art and Magic,” Jorge Luis Borges says that causality is the central problem of novel writing. The same goes for short fiction.
This method is a way to map your story’s plot points one at a time and check them for causal relationships. You can use the principles of this technique whether you’ve completed a draft or are still at the outlining stage.
Therefore + But > And Then
The name of this method? Therefore + But > And Then
If this sounds like nonsense, let me explain.
Narrate a summary of your story out loud. Read it to your best friend or a second reader. Read it right now in front of your laptop screen if you want. Whatever works. Don’t tell the whole story, just the main plot points.
How are you telling it?
If you’re saying, “And then this happens, and then that happens,” you may have a weak causal chain. We naturally recount stories using “and then,” but what this connective phrase fails to capture is the causality between events.
And, as Borges would remind us, a lack of causality can be a big problem.
Why “therefore” and “but” are better
Matt Stone and Trey Parker share a helpful tip on causal chains in the video below. (Thanks to Denise Marques Leitão for drawing my attention to this video.) Basically, they recommend changing all instances of “and then” connective logic in your outline into “therefore” or “but.”
