http://www.avi-writer.com/blog Tue, 15 Jan 2013 14:40:43 +0000 en-US hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5 http://www.avi-writer.com/blog/2012/12/the-logic-of-writing/ http://www.avi-writer.com/blog/2012/12/the-logic-of-writing/#comments Tue, 04 Dec 2012 15:03:18 +0000 Avi http://www.avi-writer.com/blog/?p=765 Continue reading →]]> Artists, and that includes writers, have the stereotypical reputation for being impulsive, living and working by intuitive steps. Beyond all else there is—so it is often believed—an emotional basis to creativity. Surely some. From this writer’s point of view, what is also fundamental is rational logic. To write true, to use a Hemingway term, a story must unfold in a logical sequence of events. Crudely put, a plot is a series of cause-and-effect sequences until the ending has a logical resolution. When cause and effect are not logical, readers balk. “Doesn’t make sense.” “I can’t follow the story.” “Too many coincidences.” “You lost me.” “Not believable.” “Implausible.” In fact, there is a veritable dictionary of phrases that are used to reject stories which have no innate logic. That doesn’t mean a story can’t have the unexpected or surprises. Indeed, if the unexpected is simultaneously perceived as logical, the reader is pleased, even delighted. Just witness the enormous success of mysteries in which the logic explanation is there, but hidden. The extraordinary popularity of Sherlock Holmes is due, I think, because brilliant logical deductive reasoning is his character. Of course, to compose three hundred pages or more (or less) of logic, is anything, dear Watson,  but “Elementary.”

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