Story Structure: Cause & Effect

Notes and distillations from Wired for Story by Lisa Cron

On the surface, a story is about the protagonist’s pursuit of a particular goal.

The real story isn't so much in what happens, but in how the characters react to it.

At a deeper level, a story is about what the protagonist must overcome internally to achieve his or her goal.

The plot is the structure of outward circumstances through which a character must pass to address his or her internal shortcoming.

Stories often begin the moment a pattern in the protagonist's life stops working.

“The protagonist is only as strong as the antagonist forces her to be.”

To write clear, crisp, coherent stories, every obstacle the protagonist faces must spring directly from his or her attempt to achieve the goal. Everything else is noise.

Pitting a character's internal and external goals against one another can generate extremely powerful narrative tension, enough to drive an entire story.

Example:
Internal goal—to be happy. External goal—to lose 10 pounds. The character works her butt off to lose the 10 pounds only to discover that it doesn't fulfill her internal goal, doesn't make her happy. She may then attempt to lose 10 more pounds. Alternatively, she may become a crusader for the false hope of weight loss, etc.

Structure each chapter or scene as a sequence of action, reaction, and decision. Each such sequence should move the story toward the protagonist’s goal. This is the story-line! To stray from this linear linkage is to stray from the story.