The creators of South Park discovered early on the secret of writing good story, and it’s just two bitty words: BUT and THEREFORE. The idea is to avoid using the other two words (the very worst of the four-letter words), AND THEN. She did this, AND THEN she did that, AND THEN this happened is clear evidence that nothing new or exciting is going on in sad protagonist’s life. The object is not to string an unconnected series of events together. That’s not what makes a good story. She did this, BUT this happened and that changed everything. It’s about obstacles and how the character reacts to them. A good writer forces decisions that affect the plot in significant ways. Something happened. THEREFORE she made a choice, and that made all the difference. That’s what gets readers leaning in, straining their eyes to pore over page after page long into the night. Readers crave conflict, drama, and if they can’t find it here, they’ll likely look elsewhere.
Because otherwise, what’s the point?
Don’t judge the reader for wanting an interesting story.
My days typically consist of a laundry list of boring must-dos. Five bucks coming through the wash and me promptly returning it to the son who left it in his pocket does not a good story make. There are days I only wish I had a good story to tell. Yesterday, for example, while at lunch celebrating a friend’s birthday. A typical day for her means not realizing she has a bee in her pants and chills with it for over two hours on the couch before the bee finally decides it’s suffered the darkness long enough and stings her. Or getting hit on at the grocery store with two babies in tow, one of which later tugs a rice cooker off the counter, leaving dinner and broken bits of appliance seeping across the freshly scrubbed tile floor.
These are the types of things that make us hurt, they make us laugh, they make us want to sit down and cry. They turn our AND THEN days into BUT and THEREFORE days. They force a reaction, an emotion, a choice. And, ultimately, a change.
Because if you think about it, in writing and in life, otherwise, what’s the point?
