My Favorite Piece of Plotting Advice
Plotting and building the structure of your novel is no easy feat—at least for me, this is where I struggle when beginning to write.
But what changed the game for me is this bit of writing craft advice I’m about to share.
Here’s what’s inside:
📚 What to do if your plot is just a pile of stuff happening
⛓ The important of cause-and-effect chains in fiction writing
💙 3 tips for writing scenes with goals, conflict, and consequences
The ✨Best Plotting Advice✨
Believe it or not, this bit of advice comes from South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone:
“Every scene in your story is connected, and how you connect them will determine whether or not they’re advancing the plot or just showing “stuff happening.” If you can say “and then” between the scenes, they’re not advancing the plot. If you can say “but” or “therefore” then something happens that forces a conflict or a decision and the plot advances.”
The key to writing meaningful scenes with goals and conflict is to force your characters to make choices concerning the obstacles in their way.
We can boil plot down to three things: Action ⏩ Reaction ⏩ Action
🔗 But/Therefore: The Importance of Cause-and-Effect Chains
Each of your scenes is like a single domino in a row.
I love a good definition, so here’s one for you:
Causal Chain: a series of events, each of which logically causes the next thing in the chain to happen.
When a ‘but’ links two scenes together, it usually comes in the form of a consequence for your character. Let’s look at one of the best uses of Three Act Structure, The Mummy (1999) with Brendon Fraser and Rachel Weisz in our ‘but’ example:
Imhotep and Anck-su-namun kill Pharaoh Seti after he discovers their affair, but Imhotep gets caught, mummified, cursed, and buried alive with flesh-eating scarabs.
This series of events has conflict, it has goals, and it has consequences—literally some of the worst consequences (Flesh-eating bugs? I still have nightmares about them). If Imhotep and his lover get away with killing the pharaoh, they live happily ever after.
Can you imagine?
Then we would’ve never had Rick O’Connell 😍 (and let’s be honest, Evelyn too) to ogle at for the rest of the movie.
Like…are you kidding?
Anyway, let’s continue…
When a ‘therefore’ links two scenes together, it comes from a choice your character made to set up the next scene or their next goal. Again, using The Mummy here:
Johnathan brings his sister, Evelyn, an intricate box with a map that leads to Hamunaptra. He tells her that he stole it from Rick O’Connell, therefore Evelyn wants to meet him, he knows where the hidden city is, therefore they find him in the local prison and set him free after making a deal with the warden.
📚 Causal Chains Look Easy Enough, Don’t They?
*laughs*
It looks easy and it might seem like the obvious thing that each scene is connected with a ‘but’ or ‘therefore’ sequence, but it’s not.
Using the But/Therefore ‘technique’ allows the events of the plot to feed off each other. Your characters will be forced to make choices and deal with whatever comes next.
That’s what pulls readers in and forget they have a life outside the pages of your book.
If an ‘and, then’ slips in, see if you can get the plot back on track with the next scene leading into a ‘but/therefore.’
Writing scenes that build off each other can be hard, but I believe with practice and keeping this piece of advice close by when you’re writing it’ll help you string your scenes together that have cause and effect.
💙 3 Tips for But/Therefore Technique
When you identify a ‘but’, what happens needs to be in conflict with your character’s goal or action.
When you identify a ‘therefore’, make sure the choice made is in response to what just happened.
If ‘therefore’ doesn’t work for you, see if ‘so’ does.
Every action has a cause and an effect.
As long as the scene, piece of dialogue, your character’s reaction, etc. build off each other, you keep your plot moving.
If the events of the plot don’t affect your character or force a decision, they’re probably not progressing the plot or making your reader care about what comes next.
✍🏼 1 Writing Exercise to Test Your Scenes
Look at your plot and outline a scene using causal chains and the But/Therefore technique.
Focus on your main character's actions, not how they feel. Their feelings might be motivators for therefore or so sequences/connections, but they don’t move the plot forward (they do, however, move the story forward 😉), because the plot is what the character does, not what they feel.
How do your scenes hold up?
Can you find cause and effect in your scenes?
Are you missing goals or conflicts?
Keep the pen moving,
Kourtney ✌
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