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Writing Backwards: Plot Construction Using Reverse Cause and Effect
The work of the amateur screenwriter is often characterized by the unnecessary. Dialogue and description are often overdone, scenes tend to be overwritten, acts are bloated and so on. You may have entire scenes that are unnecessary—perhaps even a whole act. For that matter, your entire script may be unnecessary. Don’t laugh. It may sound funny, but if you’ve ever worked as a reader, you know it’s no joke. It is generally acknowledged that 95 percent of all scripts written are just godawful (readers say it’s 98 percent), and a huge part of that has to do with craft.
Your job as a screenwriter consists of two major parts: Be a great storyteller and be able to make that story work dramatically.
Screenwriting demands total economy because a script is a very stripped-down literary form. Creating a tight sequence of cause and effect is a great way to get at the essence of a story. A dramatic plot in any genre should tend to have good cause and effect, such that the first event causes the second which causes the third and so on through to the ending. This will ensure you
have a good forward flow and eliminate any dead spots that can lose an audience.
But here’s a little secret: You can create this tight plotting by working backwards from a story’s ending, building from an effect back to its cause, thereby constructing an unbroken chain of events which helps keep the audience on the edge of their seats.
To do this, start by asking yourself: What is the object of the script? The object of a plot is a simple, clear statement of where you want the story to end up—the point on the horizon that you’re moving toward. In the movie Training Day, for example, the object of the script is that Jake (Ethan Hawke) defeats Alonzo (Denzel Washington) and emerges as a powerful new man.
The next question should be: What is the final effect that demonstrates this object on-screen with real actors? The final effect in Training Day is that Alonzo is executed by the Russians and Jake goes home. Next we want to know: What is the immediate cause of the final effect? Or, more specifically, what is the immediate cause of Alonzo being executed? It’s that Jake takes Alonzo’s $1 million for evidence, so Alonzo can’t pay off the Russians.
Now we ask: What’s the cause of Jake taking the money? Jake defeats Alonzo in the fight, with some help from locals in the neighborhood. In doing this, we’re reasoning backwards from an effect to its direct cause. The cause of Alonzo’s defeat is the smashing of his car after Jake drops onto it and stuns him. Meanwhile, Jake had dropped onto the car only after Alonzo beat him up and attempted a getaway. Before that, Alonzo was angered when Jake tried to arrest him.
Notice that in each instance we ask only “what is the cause of each effect,” and not “what comes before it?” This is the major distinction that makes this tool work. Any number of things can come before an effect, but only one thing actually causes it. Say that your partner embezzles a bunch of money and frames you to take the fall, so you’re going to kill him. What comes before you killing him might be that you drop off your dry cleaning, get a hamburger, take your kids to soccer and buy some poison, but the cause of you killing your partner is that he ripped you off and set you up. Chaining backwards from an effect to its cause helps separate the necessary from the unnecessary.
It’s so easy to get caught up in your own story and it’s extremely difficult to achieve genuine objectivity. Reverse cause and effect allows you to strip your plot down to its basics in the same way that radically pruning a tree exposes its major branches. Many screenwriters will have a beautifully written scene in a script that does not work, which is like having an ornately furnished room in a house that’s falling down. You’ve got oak trim, gold leaf and carved marble, but the house is caving in. If you don’t get the overall structure right, then the details do not matter. Aristotle echoes this when he says that in constructing a plot, the writer “should first sketch its general outline, and then fill in the episodes and amplify in detail.” He’s talking about building from the general to the specific.
Let’s see some cause and effect for Training Day.
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COMMENTS | POST A COMMENT 
- Comment by Funny Sayings collection on 1/10/09 at 4:12 am
thanks for sharing…
- Comment by Alabama personal injury lawyers on 2/09/09 at 4:12 am
My goodness, I stumbled upon this article by accident and was amazed by its message and content! This has to be one of the most inspired and inspiring articles I’ve read, thank you for an informative, thoughtful, researched and motivating message!
- Comment by ed hardy on 7/17/09 at 3:39 am
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- Comment by construction leads on 10/21/09 at 8:29 pm
Actuallly, I would estimate that 98% of scripts are gawd awful. :-)
- Comment by Parent List on 10/22/09 at 9:53 pm
Love the broken down house analogy! I agree, screenwriters today seem to be grasping at straws. And it seems the MPAA is allowing just about anything these days…
- Comment by Okey oyunu on 5/12/11 at 7:14 am
Thanks so much. Okey dünyanın en zevkli oyunlarından birisidir. On binlerce üyenin bir arada buluduğu okey oyunu dünyasına katılmak, artık çok kolay. Ücretsiz olarak okey oyunu oynayabileceğiniz mükemmel bir site sizleri bekliyor. Sizde hemen http://www.okey-oyunu.com adresinden oyunu indirebilir ve muhteşem okey oyunu dünyasına katılabilirsiniz. Online olarak dünyanın her bölgesinden insanlar ile kıyasıya mücadele içerisine girerek, kendinizi ispat edebilirsiniz.
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This story was published in the Guide to Making Movies 2007 MovieMaker Magazine. The headline was:
Writing Backwards/Plot Construction Using Reverse Cause and Effect
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