From the course: Writing: The Craft of Story
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Explanation: Cause and effect
From the course: Writing: The Craft of Story
Explanation: Cause and effect
- Story, like life, is driven by emotion, but it's ordered by logic. The brain analyzes everything in terms of cause and effect. If this happens, it will cause that to happen. What makes us different from all other species is that we are wired to take it one step further by trying to understand why this caused that, the better, not only to anticipate what might happen next, but to figure out how to change it to our advantage. Stories allow us to test-drive those possibilities without having to actually take the risk. It's as close as we can get to having our cake and eating it too. When a story doesn't follow a clear cause-and-effect trajectory, the brain doesn't know what to make of it, because we have no idea what things are meant to add up to. This can result in a feeling of physical distress, not to mention the very real desire to chuck the book out the window. The good news is that story-wise, cause and effect boils down to a simple…
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