Using what Forster (1927) says about story, plot, mystery, memory, loose ends and the cost of too much causality, what concrete checks can an agent run on an outline to tell a merely chronological sequence from a causal plot, and what does Forster warn about?
1927 criticism turned into checks (the checks are this worker's synthesis; Forster offers none by name). From Forster: a time-ordered series invites 'and then?' (E1, E2, E8-E10) while a causal plot invites 'why?', so each link in an outline can be tested for whether it states a cause. A withheld cause is legitimate when it is revealed later and the reader could remember what is needed (E3, E4, E6, E7). Forster also separates modes: a story-teller like Scott may leave ragged ends and need not 'hammer away at cause and effect' (E11-E13), whereas a plot-maker may not leave loose ends (E6, E12). He warns that too much causality drains characters (Hardy, E15-E16), that plot and character trade off (E17, E18), that plots tend to be wound up weakly at the end (E19), and that the Gide passage he reports rejects prearrangement altogether (E21, E22, E25). So the checks below are conditional on the outline's declared mode and have no source-backed pass mark.
Structured fields
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- [sourced_fact] 1927 criticism turned into checks (the checks are this worker's synthesis; Forster offers none by name). From Forster: a time-ordered series invites 'and then?' (E1, E2, E8-E10) while a causal plot invites 'why?', so each link in an outline can be tested for whether it states a cause. A withheld cause is legitimate when it is revealed later and the reader could remember what is needed (E3, E4, E6, E7). Forster also separates modes: a story-teller like Scott may leave ragged ends and need not 'hammer away at cause and effect' (E11-E13), whereas a plot-maker may not leave loose ends (E6, E12). He warns that too much causality drains characters (Hardy, E15-E16), that plot and character trade off (E17, E18), that plots tend to be wound up weakly at the end (E19), and that the Gide passage he reports rejects prearrangement altogether (E21, E22, E25). So the checks below are conditional on the outline's declared mode and have no source-backed pass mark. · locator: candidate evidence excerpts source
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