Over at Pen and Mirror, I’ve been writing recently about how our choices (and our characters’ choices) have complicated causes and consequences beyond “A leads to B.” I compared this to tossing a pebble into a lake. There are actions leading up to the moment the rock hits the water, and there are ripples reaching out quite a distance from that initial impact. As an author, don’t get too caught up in the splash itself—ask questions about who is throwing the pebble and which quiet surfaces those ripples might reshape.
Today, we’ll walk through some of these questions that are most helpful for novelists. Whether you’re currently planning, writing, or revising your novel, thinking through the following sets of questions will help you use cause and effect intentionally and impactfully in your story.
Big-picture Question #1: Is consequence a central theme of your story?
Are you telling a story that thematically focuses on the consequences of a character’s choices? For some books, the answer will be yes; for others, no. As an example, I would point to my book club’s summer read: Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset. In this historical classic set in medieval Norway, consequences of the characters’ actions come up repeatedly. As Kristin and others around her reflect on their choices, they see more and more of the ways those consequences ripple across their own lives and the lives of their loved ones.
Not every story will focus so closely on consequence, and that’s okay. Wherever yours lands, here are three more questions to help you explore the place of consequence in your book:
- 1.1 What would change if your characters made different choices? If this is a question you want your readers (or your characters themselves) to be asking, you’re probably focusing pretty closely on consequence.
- 1.2 Is your main character caught off guard by the consequences of their actions, overly obsessive about their decision-making process, or somewhere in between? The way your character approaches their own choices will impact your reader’s experience with the story.
- 1.3 Where do the most significant consequences of your characters’ choices land? Consider personal consequences, the consequences on others close to them, and the greater consequences on the world around them, depending on the scale of the story.
Big-picture Question # 2: What choices had to be made for your plot to happen?
Maybe your book isn’t focused thematically on consequence itself. Still, someone had to make a choice in order for your story to happen. Consider Tolkien’s stories: The Hobbit is a story of adventure, dragon-slaying, and treasure, but Bilbo’s seemingly chance choice to keep Gollum’s lost ring helped to trigger the series of events that eventually play out in The Lord of the Rings. The latter story is about the fight between good and evil, about hope and courage in the face of great darkness, and has very little to do with Bilbo himself. Even so, if Bilbo hadn’t made that impulsive choice in The Hobbit, Frodo may never have faced the terrible journey he did in The Lord of the Rings.
More often than not, there’s a mix of factors, not just a single cause, setting up a book’s central conflict and resulting plot. These three questions—simple to ask, harder to answer—will help you map cause and effect in your own story and identify your potential plot holes:
- 2.1 What choices did your protagonist make to take them in a specific direction? Their response to the inciting incident ultimately sets the trajectory for the whole book.
- 2.2 What choices did others make to set up the story? Did a villain start a war? Did a young protagonist’s parent accept work in a new city? Your protagonist isn’t the only person in the world, and the circumstances that push them into motion were most likely caused in part by the actions of others.
- 2.3 What do unexpected consequences look like in your story? Not everything goes according to plan in life, a truth often reflected in the pages of a book. As an author, consider the consequences your protagonist didn’t—or couldn’t—foresee.
Big-picture Question #3: What does agency look like for your protagonist?
Character agency is when your character makes decisions and takes actions that shape the direction of their own life and story. You don’t want to overlook this! If all a character does is sit and observe as things happen to them, is their perspective actually correct for the story? Passivity is also a choice—but it should be used intentionally, with close attention paid to the consequences of choosing not to act.
Readers will be most engaged by characters who are actually driving the story. Consider these three questions about your protagonist’s agency:
- 3.1 What motivates your main character? Consider the fears, hopes, and values that go into their decision-making process, as well as the things they’re trying to achieve.
- 3.2 Where do their choices have negative consequences? If they make a bad decision, intentionally or otherwise, it will end up leading to more problems for them and the people around them.
- 3.3 Where do their choices have positive consequences? When your protagonist makes good decisions, they will grow as a character and move closer to resolving the story’s conflict.
No “just because.”
As I shared with my Substack audience last week, nothing happens “just because”—cause and effect is more impactful than deus ex machina. Characters face choices and act according to their motivations, and as a result, they have an impact on their world.
If you find that you’re having trouble answering the questions above, especially around character agency, why not get a fresh set of eyes on your manuscript? This is something I’ll walk through in a manuscript critique or in-depth developmental edit, and I still have availability this fall. Check out editing service options here, and don’t be afraid to reach out if you have any questions!
To explore more on this topic, keep an eye out for my next article over at Pen and Mirror, where we’ll talk more about looking backwards and forwards from any given event to explore why it happened and what comes of it. Otherwise, I’ll see you back here in a few weeks with a new topic.