Episodic Fiction

What it means and how to deal with it if you aren't in the episodic fan club

Photo by Jean-Philippe Delberghe on Unsplash

In Western literature, we focus a lot on cause and effect in story and it becomes an expectation in our culture that a story has this. Often, if it doesn’t we call the story episodic and make it sound super derisive like the naughtiest insult ever. “Oh, your story is just so episodic. Ew.”

Here’s the thing: You can make a choice to be episodic or not, but if you don’t want to be episodic and you want that clear line of cause and effect, then this is the post for you.