Craft Glossary · term

Causality / the "therefore, but" test

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Plain English: Scenes should connect by consequence, not mere sequence. The South Park test: events should read "this happened, therefore that, but then…" — never "and then… and then…".

Rule: If you can reorder two adjacent scenes without breaking anything, the causal chain is weak. Each scene's disaster should cause the next scene's goal (the scene→sequel→scene loop is this chain in miniature; the key-chain is its enforced form).

Fail: "And-then" plotting — episodic incidents with no causal pressure. The repo's gate enforces this with plant-must-precede-payoff and the unbroken key-chain.

See: Quest-relay · Plant & payoff

Arjuna Badger Press · Craft Library

Glossary · Doctrine · Anti-patterns · Triptych form · LLM tells

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