Elements of Plot, Part 3: Consequences
Why Are Consequences an Essential Plot Element?
You know what we like? Justice.
When a villain in a story blows up an entire city, we want to see justice served. We want that villain to get what’s coming. It’s satisfying and juicy.
But in this post (part three of the elements of plot series - check out part 1: tension and part 2: progress), I’m going to argue that justice isn’t just satisfying when doled out to a villain.
We want to see it in our heroes, as well. In the form of consequences.
What Happens When a Story is Missing Consequences?
Consequences are a part of life. Every action has a reaction. Because of this, reading a story where consequences are at play is not only more interesting, it’s more realistic.
For example, if the main character of a story is a middle schooler that breaks into the principal’s office in an effort to change a bad grade, that’s a high-tension scene.
What if they’re caught? What if they’re expelled? Suddenly that bad grade they were so worried about suddenly becomes the least of their problems.
But imagine that they are caught. The principal walks in, raises her highbrows meaningfully…and then gives the student an understanding pat on the shoulder and shoos them away.
Of course, there are ways to make this interesting, perhaps by diving into the relationship between the principal and the student or by teaching the student some kind of lesson. But imagine if this type of thing happened over and over again. We’d start to be less invested in the story. We wouldn’t worry so much the next time they got a hare-brained idea.
We might even get bored.
Using Consequences to Make the Reader Care
As a more tangible example, I’m going to turn to the new Amazon Prime series, Daisy Jones and the Six.
A few years ago, I read this book and enjoyed it. So I was very excited for the series to release. My husband even watched it with me!
And, for the most part, I really enjoyed the show (highly recommend). But he and I did have one major beef:
the character of Billy Dunne.
One of the biggest reasons we kept getting annoyed by Billy, rather than relating to and feeling sympathy for him, was because of the lack of consequences he experienced, despite his constant stream of poor choices.
The times when Billy did experience negative consequences for poor choices were the times I was most invested in him as a character. Unfortunately, I felt like when these consequences happened, they were over so quickly that I just ended up more frustrated.
To further demonstrate this point, I’m going to dive into some spoiler-y examples. So if you haven’t yet watched the adaptation and don’t want to be spoiled, this is your warning to stop and come back after you’ve binged the 10-episode series.
P.S. Similar to when I wrote about Netflix’s Wednesday, I very much enjoyed this series. I’m being nit-picky here because Billy, as a character, provides a good example of how a lack of consequences can impact a story.
Let’s go.
Using Consequences to Keep a Reader Engaged
Pretty much everything I’ll ever identify as an essential storytelling element is there to do one thing: keep a reader engaged. That’s all we really want, after all. We want to hook a reader, to keep them turning pages, and to make them leave our story feeling satisfied.
Consequences are crucial for all of this. They invest us in a character’s storyline. They make the story feel plausible so that we’re less likely to roll our eyes or throw the book across the room. And they make it so that the struggle a character inevitably faces feels real and earned.
Consequences Within Character Arcs
SPOILER WARNING
To start, let’s examine some of Billy’s poor decisions in Daisy Jones & the Six:
He took over his little brother’s band.
He cheated on his wife
He used so many drugs that his band’s first tour was cancelled.
He refused to work with Daisy Jones.
He kissed Daisy while he was still married.
I don’t have any beef with the fact that Billy made mistakes. I love a flawed character!
The problem was, the consequences he faced as a result of making these mistakes were light and short-lived. I didn’t buy them as enough to move forward along his character arc, which is the ultimate point of consequences.
If story is transformation, then consequences and subsequent lessons learned are a crucial part of that transformation.
Billy Dunne Character Arc
Yes, Billy missed the birth of his daughter, but we didn’t get to see the repercussions. That event took place at the end of one episode, and a couple of minutes into the next, his wife welcomed him back into the lives of her and her child.
He may have gone to rehab, but we didn’t get to be a part of those consequences or the emotional journey he took getting back to a more stable place in his personal life. Because of this, we didn’t get to feel that his character transformation was earned, and even when we did see the turmoil that came from his addiction, it was harder to feel sympathy for him.
Despite all of the inner conflict Billy dealt with, I could never fully root for him until the very end, when I got to see him both face consequences and work through them.
(As a result of this, I cried during the last episode! It was a fantastic ending.)
Daisy Jones Character Arc
Daisy, on the other hand, had lyrics stolen, ended up in jail, lost her best friend for a time, was abandoned by a man she didn’t really know (but married anyway), and had her heart broken.
Each of these were examples of consequences that came about because of choices Daisy made from feelings of unworthiness, fear, scarcity, insecurity, and from plain old bad judgment. In other words, they were choices made from the Before stage of her transformation.
But because she suffered these consequences, I felt like I was traveling along her arc with her. I could root for her. I could relate to her. And I could love her all the more for her flaws.
In other words, I got to feel the internal struggle and taste the satisfaction that came from her ultimate transformation, which is exactly what we want most from stories.
We want to see protagonists making mistakes. The problem with Billy wasn’t the fact that he made mistakes, it was the fact that we didn’t get to see his consequences and feel the realities of his ultimate transformation.
Consequences transform a conflict from something that’s interesting in the moment, to something impactful and memorable in the long run.
The satisfaction we feel at the end of a story comes from the struggle. And struggle will always include consequence.
