Lesson 4: More cause and effect

I hope you have taken the time to start to develop the ability to notice your feelings and see. If you haven’t, if  you’ve decided not to do the activities in lesson 3, then you are not going to get anywhere. You are going to remain forever at the beginning of the path.

The path starts with you learning how to see.

Why am I being such a hard case about this?

Because until you can see and feel, you can’t tell what does and doesn’t work in your story.

For example, you will run into blocks as you develop your stories. You will. And if you can’t see and feel what’s going on, you won’t be able to articulate the symptoms. And not knowing the symptoms, you won’t be able to diagnose it effectively. And if you can’t diagnose it, how can you prescribe possible solutions?

When you can see and feel the concepts in action, your own story development becomes so much easier.

Sure, if you want, skim ahead. Heck, that’s how I like to learn. Read it all, then go back and work through the learning. But make sure you go back to lesson three.

Learn how to see!

Once you start seeing those things, there are other reader effects to see and understand and feel. This is one of the things I love about writing—there’s so much to learn!

Here are some other examinations of various effects. There’s no order to them. And the list is by no means complete. But I think they’ll be helpful to you as you learn the magic of story.

Read one of the post on the list that appeals to you. I recommend you start with one of the first two. Then look for that in a story–try to see and feel that story does indeed work that way. Test it! Practice trumps theory.

I’ll add more to this list as things come to me and I have time. But there are a lot of other authors who have written about the workings of stories.  And there are things they will identify that you’ll want to see.

Here’s my master list of books, podcasts, workshops by pros that I heartily recommend. Select a book to read. I recommend you start with one of those at the top by Swain, Card, or Bickam. When you finish the book, I recommend you test the ideas to see if you actually find them in the stories you read.

Finally, read this summary of the 4 basic things you’ll do to continue to learn the craft, or, in other words, the things that will help you learn how to see and feel the cause and effect upon readers.

Once you have begun reading your book and have looked for one of the things above in a story or three, move to the next lesson.

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