Story Genius: How to Use Brain Science to Go Beyond Outlining and Write a Riveting Novel (Before You Waste Three Years Writing 327 Pages That Go Nowhere)

by Lisa Cron

When it comes to blueprinting your novel, the law of cause and effect is one of your most useful tools. Like a very strong flashlight on a very dark night, it reveals the logic behind, well, everything. It’s a mathematical proof that you can, with surprising ease, apply to both levels of your novel: the internal story level and the external plot level. On the internal level, the question is, what would my protagonist’s belief/past experience cause him to do in this situation? On the external level, the question is, how will the other character(s) and the world react to what my protagonist will do? In other words, cause and effect supplies both the internal and the external logic that underlies and orders your blueprint, ensuring that each event triggers the next.