effecting causes
Mar. 25th, 2011 03:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
marycatelliWriting is a juggling game. And one of the biggest things to juggle is time.
Well, your time certainly to get the silly thing written, but the characters' time, too. It can be a hard habit to pick up, but story time is not like writing time for purposes of development. Causes do not have to follow effects. Foreshadowing is the easiest one to learn to go back and put in, but anything at all can be caused by what, in the story, are its effects. The quarrels of supporting characters with the hero are there in order to supply the reason for the hero to be isolated at the climax, not the other way round.
It works for characterization too. You can set up the events, sit back, and ponder the question, What sort of person would do all this? and build up a character that way. Within the story, the hero steals the gemstone to show his mother that he really is as good a thief as his father; you don't have to tell anyone that you wanted him to steal the gemstone and worked back from that.
Well, your time certainly to get the silly thing written, but the characters' time, too. It can be a hard habit to pick up, but story time is not like writing time for purposes of development. Causes do not have to follow effects. Foreshadowing is the easiest one to learn to go back and put in, but anything at all can be caused by what, in the story, are its effects. The quarrels of supporting characters with the hero are there in order to supply the reason for the hero to be isolated at the climax, not the other way round.
It works for characterization too. You can set up the events, sit back, and ponder the question, What sort of person would do all this? and build up a character that way. Within the story, the hero steals the gemstone to show his mother that he really is as good a thief as his father; you don't have to tell anyone that you wanted him to steal the gemstone and worked back from that.