Causal Chain Experience Redux
Inspired by Holly’s recent discussion on chapter breaks, I thought I’d revisit an old post I wrote a couple of years ago. The causal chain experience.
Remember, narrative structure is a sequence of cause and effect. Stories are formed by an interlinked sequence: Event A causes Event B (and so on). One event, one decision triggers the next one, and the next one. To reinforce both action (external) and emotional (internal) plot movements, build tension, and create strong drama, a writer needs to be mindful of the story’s causal chain.
Harrison Demchick (The Writer's Ally) offered a wonderful analogy on this concept. Think of plot as a twisted layout of dominoes, and every plot beat in your narrative is a single domino. The first domino is the inciting incident, and once tipped, it launches a succession of plot beats. This is the rising action. Over the course of the story, there are complications, subplots, and dramatic turns. This rising action reaches a peak, and there’s anticipation – upon baited breathe, perhaps even a dash of hope -- about what comes next. And ultimately, with the climax, the hero emerges.
Weak plots tend to follow a “This happens, then this happens, and then this happens” formula. Such a plot is reduced to a series of unrelated scenes. A stronger method for mapping a plot is using the formula, Therefore + But. In this way, the plot unfolds logically, and every scene also becomes relevant. Returning to the domino analogy: while the author may push the first domino over (the inciting incident), the readers cannot help but stay engaged and in awe as several thousand dominoes fall consequently.
In other words, the power in any plot beat is not the beat itself. It’s how the character got there. And this unfolding drama is built upon the causal chain.
To strengthen your narrative structure, you can outline your causal chain at the planning stage. Write the events of your story in a series of cause and effect. Once you create this outline, revisit each event to determine which cause/effects relationship needs to be explained or implied.
Everything that happens should be the effect of what precedes it. If readers don’t understand why the car broke down when it did, or why the dragon showed up at that moment, or why the roommate left when she did, even if the event is off stage, then it may be issues with causation. The causal chain builds trust between reader and writer because it implies the rules that govern the worlds in the narrative, and the consequences of character choices.
Cause without effect is like a single domino set up alongside, but not within, the domino chain. If the domino can be removed without effecting the chain, then the domino isn’t necessary. Likewise, if you can remove a scene, or a sequence from the manuscript without notable effect on the surrounding action, it reflects a weakened causal chain.
So, what does a strong causal chain do? The very nature of a strong causal chain -- like dominoes-- creates anticipation and builds tension that leads to a dramatic, emotionally satisfying finale.
For a masterful visual of a causal chain, check out this video, in which pro domino artist Lily Hevesh uses 32,000 dominoes to create a massive domino chain, taking 82 days to build.
This is the perfect illustration that demonstrates how a causal chain works in Story. Each subplot must connect to and ultimately affect the broader action.
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