Thus the key thing to remember is, naturally, Newton’s first law of thermodynamics: you can’t get something from nothing. Or as the equally brainy Albert Einstein reportedly quipped, “Nothing happens until something moves.” In other words, no matter how much something catches you off guard, nothing ever really occurs out of the blue. Not in real life, not in a story. There is always a cause-and-effect trajectory, whether or not the protagonist—or in the case of real life, you and I—see it coming.
