We understand a story’s meaning, in part, by tracking its causality, and a story’s power stems from our sense that its causality is truthful, which is to say, that its internal logic is solid.
We understand a story’s meaning, in part, by tracking its causality, and a story’s power stems from our sense that its causality is truthful, which is to say, that its internal logic is solid.
Saved by Alex Dobrenko
But that’s really all a story is: a series of things that happen in sequence, in which we can discern a pattern of causality. For most of us, the problem is not in making things happen (“A dog barked,” “The house exploded,” “Darren kicked the tire of his car” are all easy enough to type) but in making one thing seem to cause the next. This is impor
... See moreBut that’s really all a story is: a series of things that happen in sequence, in which we can discern a pattern of causality.
A story is an organic whole, and when we say a story is good, we’re saying that it responds alertly to itself.
Causality is to the writer what melody is to the songwriter: a superpower that the audience feels as the crux of the matter; the thing the audience actually shows up for; the hardest thing to do; that which distinguishes the competent practitioner from the extraordinary one.
We could understand a story as simply a series of such expectation/resolution moments.
A good story is one that, having created a pattern of excesses, notices those excesses and converts them into virtues.
What a story is “about” is to be found in the curiosity it creates in us, which is a form of caring.
The “Hollywood version” is meant to answer the question “What story does this story appear to want to be?”