Cause and Effect in Your Story
We’re continuing our series on storytelling with author Benjamin T. Collier who’s talking about cause and effect in your story. What exactly
Ben explains it clearly in this example from his blog.
“… You can determine the relevance of any item in your story by analyzing how the story would unfold differently if you remove that item.
This was brought to light in a tangible way by a particular episode of The Big Bang Theory titled “The Raiders Minimization”. It analyzed the film Raiders of the Lost Ark and realized that the character of Indiana Jones held no actual relevance to the unfolding of the story. With Indiana Jones in the story, the Nazis acquire the ark and the ark kills them. Without Indiana Jones in the story, the exact same thing would have happened. So his presence in the story makes no difference, so he is irrelevant to the story. He accomplished nothing. I’ll talk more about that film at the end of this blog, but first, the principle of Cause and Effect is worth discussing in detail.” …
How is your story coming along? Is your main character relevant to the unfolding story?
Continue reading on Benjamin’s blog to determine if your character is pulling their weight.
If you’d like to catch up with Benjamin’s previous posts start here.
Happy Writing, folks!
~ Lynne & Kirstie
