Your Story's Interstitials

If you've ever hear me toss about a fancy-pants word, I probably learned the vocab from the brilliant Elana K. Arnold. She's so smart! In fact, if you're intersted in taking a master class, you should check out her revision season. 

Onward to interstitials - one of the many words Elana taught me.

Interstitials sounds highfalutin, but we’re simply talking about the connective tissue within your manuscript. It’s what ties the story and the character’s choices together in a meaningful way (plot!). 

Why are interstitials important?

With interstitials in place, you have an interwoven story that is knitted together by character choices🤩👍.  Without interstitials, you have a bunch of stuff happening that's without meaningful connections.  Perhaps you'll want to add "check interstitials" to your revision checklist.

More on Why:

You probably want to write compelling manuscripts and/or guide your critique partners to develop page-turning, satisfying stories.  To do so means that things don't just “happen” to a character. If a story is going to captivate readers, the protagonist can’t be a passenger

flowing along in the current of life. The character must make choices that drive the plot. And each choice has a consequence that causes the character to make the next choice and then the next and so on.

Benefits: With solid interstitials/connective tissue, you’ll see how:

• the character drives the plot
• the story draws the reader in deeper
• the readers comes to trust that everything matters and therefore will want to know what happens next!

I created this chart below so you can see how the interstitials track in Beauty and the Beast.

CHARACTER	ACTION	AND THEN...        (or)	THEREFORE...
Belle's father Maurice	heads to the fair but gets lost and is chased by wolves		therefore, he illegally takes refuge in the Beast's castle
			because of that: the Beast holds Maurice prisoner.
Because Maurice is missing,	Belle goes looking for her father		BUT the Beast won't let Maurice go, THEREFORE Belle tells the beast that she will be the prisoner in her father's stead. (THEREFORE she stays)
The Beast	is a jerk		THEREFORE Belle won't have dinner with him
			and BECAUSE OF THAT the cups, saucers, teapots etc. server her dinner (kindly singing Be Our Guest)
			and BECAUSE OF THAT Belle is comfortable and THEREFORE moves about the castle
			and THEREFORE discovers the enchanted rose
			and because of that she THEREFORE gets a glimpse of the beast's true and good self.

As you know, the story goes on from there.

Notice that there are compelling reasons (character motivations) for Belle's choices, and each choice/action catapults into the next choice. Remove the choices and the plot unravels or hinges too much on coincidence. If a moment is followed by an "and then" the plot can stall or fall into a pattern of stuff happening to the character rather than the character making action choices (i.e. the action of Belle looking for her father, rather than Belle coincidentally meeting the Beast).  

Want more? Check out what the makers of South Park have to say about "because of this then that" in this two minute video: