Cause and Effect

There's something special about writers

In her book, What's Your Story: A Young Person's Guide to Writing Fiction, Marion Dane Bauer writes, "Every part of your story should be an essential step along the way to the outcome." (p.53)

Just like in books, we create the story that is our life. We interact. We make decisions. We decide to do one thing and that thing makes something else happen. 

There's a girl in my life who doesn't understand this concept. She does things - often naughty things - and doesn't think through to the next step, poor kid. We're always talking about consequences for behavior. We're always talking about how you have to think through what you're doing and go on to the next step.

"When you ran away from the teacher and hid under the stairs, what did you think is going to happen?" we ask.

And the answer is always, "I didn't really think about it."

Ralph Waldo Emerson with the quotable quote win here.