Wednesday's Writer's Tip - Finding the pattern #MFRWauthor,

Cause and effect, reaction and motivating force form a pattern. While in real life they can happen simultaneously, when you're involved with characters in a story there needs to be a pattern shown to help the reader understand.

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There is no way in a story that cause, action, reaction can be shown simultaneously. If you try, the pattern is muddied. So to show the change, you need to follow step by step. first comes the moment of change or the cause. Next comes the reaction. Then comes the emotional reason.

A loud noise is heard. The character screams. Or the character cowers. The reaction depends on the character's reason to the noise. So you have a circle.