In a post on Writers in the Storm, Lynette Burrows reviews the tried and true what-but-therefore technique to building a plot with a logical flow of action. “If you’re looking for a simple and effective tool for creating a cause-effect, can’t-stop-reading plot use the WHAT-BUT-THEREFORE method,” she says.
Many writers excel at creating story events but still fail to craft a compelling plot. Why? Because the events are disconnected. The protagonist goes from Point A to Point B because that’s where the story is happening, not because the hero has any intrinsic reason for doing so. Even if you add some cause and effect – someone telling the hero where to go or summoning him for help – you can still write a boring story. The What-But-Therefore technique can help you avoid this scenario.
“This group of sentences helps you create a causal plot,” Burrows explains. One act leads to a complication and a decision or new action. Used properly, they can help you build the steps of an interesting plot that shows your theme and compels your reader to turn the page.”
- What. The “what” is what’s happening – your character’s goal and the actions they take to reach it. This is the Plan.
- But. Buts are your hero’s obstacles. The Plan says one thing, BUT something helps happens to stop this action.
- Therefore. Because of this obstacle, your hero Therefore must change her strategy or take a new, unexpected action.
Your character plans to do WHAT, BUT something stops her, THEREFORE, she must take a new action. Burrows walks through the story of Rumplestiltskin as both a chain of events and as a what-but-therefore sequence to show the difference between a bland series of plot points and a compelling story with conflict and rising action.
“The reason I love this method of building an outline is that the words remind me to put the tension in each scene,” Burrows says. “But I don’t have an outline so detailed that my inner pantser feels restricted. I leave the specifics of the complications and how the characters get into or out of the complications.”
There’s more to building a great plot than what-but-therefore. You still need theme, characters, goals, and tension, Burrows notes. But it helps. “If you need a quick-and-dirty outline that gives you a flexible outline, What-But-Therefore can work for you.”
