Your story needs consequences, not more plot

One of the questions writers ask themselves all the time is:

What should happen next?

But sometimes, especially when you're feeling stuck, a better question might be:

What's already been set in motion?

Because the events of your screenplay shouldn't just happen and then disappear behind you. They should cause something.

Your protagonist makes a choice. That choice triggers consequences. Those consequences change the situation, which creates a new problem, which forces a new choice.

But if the cause has no effect, the story starts to peter out. And if something happens and nothing changes because of it over and over again, the audience eventually starts to wonder why they're watching.

A consequence isn't necessarily a punishment

When we hear the word consequence, we tend to think of something negative. You make a bad choice, and something bad happens.

The lie gets discovered. The betrayal comes back to haunt you. The reckless decision blows up in your face.

Those are consequences, of course, but they're not the only kind. Some of the most interesting plot problems are consequences of things your protagonist did right.

Your protagonist tells the truth, and someone she loves is hurt by it.

She saves a stranger, and doing so puts her own family in danger.

She confronts the antagonist, and now the antagonist knows exactly what she's trying to do.

None of those choices have to be mistakes. In fact, they can be exactly the right choices for the character to make.

But they change the conditions of the story. And that's what a consequence really is. Not just something bad that happens after a bad choice is made. It's the way the situation changes because a choice or action happened.

One choice can contain a lot of story

Now you can look at your protagonist's decisions and ask: What happens because she made this choice? Does anything in the scenes that follow exist because of that decision?

Maybe your protagonist decides to confront her sister about something she's been avoiding.

Okay. What happens because she did? How have the conditions changed?

Does her sister get defensive? Does she reveal something unexpected? Does another family member overhear it? Does the relationship change?

Maybe now the protagonist has information she didn't have before, but someone else knows she's been keeping a secret. And suddenly the protagonist has a new problem to deal with.

You might not use all of the consequences you come up with. The point is to look for them.

Because a meaningful or difficult choice rarely produces just one neat little outcome. And the more you follow the possible consequences, the more story material you find.

This is why I think it's useful to stop thinking of consequences as something that happens to a character. Instead, think of them as potential story threads created by the character's choices.

Your protagonist doesn't have to cause every problem

This doesn't mean your protagonist needs to create every new problem herself. Sometimes something happens that she had absolutely nothing to do with.

The house burns down. Her father dies. A stranger shows up. The company closes. The storm hits. The antagonist makes a move she couldn't have anticipated.

That's all perfectly legitimate — the question is what happens after that. What does your protagonist do in response? And once she makes that choice, how does the situation change?

The protagonist doesn't have to cause the storm. She just needs to make choices that determine where the story goes once the storm arrives.

When the protagonist's own decisions contribute to the situation she's now struggling to get out of, it makes the plot personal.

If she has helped to create the problem she's now facing, she can't simply point at the antagonist and say, You did this to me. Now she has to reckon with herself and why she's made those choices.

The more your protagonist's choices have consequences, the more complicated her situation can become.

One choice creates a problem; solving that problem creates another complication; the protagonist makes progress toward her goal but loses an option she was counting on. The situation gets harder, but she still has a reason to keep going because the goal remains possible.

And that tension between things getting harder and the character continuing to push forward is what keeps us watching.

Don't ask what happens next. Ask what happens because.

So the next time you're staring at your outline wondering, What happens next?

Look at what just happened and ask: What did this set in motion?

• Who is affected by what just happened?
• Who needs to respond?
• What option has just disappeared?
• What new opportunity has opened up?
• What relationship or alliance has shifted?
• What new problem exists that didn't exist before?
• What has become harder for the protagonist?
• What does she now have to decide?
• What new complications could grow out of this choice?

You don't need to use every consequence you find. But the point is to find them, because every meaningful choice is carrying potential story with it.

You may already have more story than you think

Writers often respond to a story that feels thin by trying to add more plot, whether that takes the form of a subplot, twist, obstacle, event, or even throwing another character into the mix.

But before you add anything, take a closer look at the choices that are already on the page.

What did each choice set in motion? Who responded? What changed? What became harder? What haven't you followed yet?

And just as importantly: How did your protagonist help create the situation she's now in?

What decision put her here? What did she do that made the next problem possible? What does she now have to confront about herself because of the part she played?

You might discover that there's more story hiding in your existing plot than you realized. Instead of manufacturing another event, you may just need to follow the consequences of the events and choices you already have.

Until next time,

Naomi