Writers' muse entry: The natural order in stories 1

The natural order in stories

The natural order, is the expected course and order of events in your story. Defining natural order might seem unwarranted as the words in it are self explanatory enough, however its depth and essence in our stories need further analysis as it is an essential tool needed to forge the best of creative pieces. This article will be in series of 3. Today,  I'll be touching cause and effect as an element of natural order.
The words cause and effect are self explanatory enough, and hence explain that the best order of events is for causes to occur before their effects or causes and effects to alternate in successions. To be more precise I will take us into a true story world. In our various stories, we build up our stories from various events that eventually lead to a supreme after event, often manifested in the story climax, in such cases a simple natural order is observed and often readers finds this very appealing to their tastes.

I will be using a flash story from the on going blackout7 as a reference. The story is titled "bam bam". I will be using this story as it is a very good example of how natural order can be exploited perfectly as will later be discussed in the third part of this series. Here is John Jako flash:

"Anwulika Chukwu was a magnet. A thing that attracts things. From the moment she entered Sobi Barracks, all the soldiers gravitated towards her. But she was a north pole and they were all north poles too. There wasonly one south pole in Sobi. He was the man she had come for. The man she had been sent to kill. His name was Don.

***

Don was a watchman. A man who looked out for danger to protect others. But when a fair lady in army uniform walked through the door of the officers’ mess, he saw no danger, only full pink lips and supple breasts. His phallus sent a message to his heart. His heart relayed it to his brain. His brain buzzed like an alarm. He stood up from his chair and started towards her. Pure animal instinct. By the time he got to where she was seated alone, he was breathing heavily. The rate of his heart beat had tripled. He had never believed in love, only in iron and pain. But here he was, his heart melting like jelly. My name is Don, he said.

***

She played him for weeks, like a soccer ball. It had to be that way, even though he had confessed his love within the first week. She had to wait for the perfect moment. The perfect moment came on the fifth week, when he invited her for a date outside the barracks. He said they were going to see a movie. She knew they would end up in a motel. She was right. As always.

***

At the cinema, she bought a hotdog. He bought bars of candy. While they ate in front of the big screen, her head dropped on his shoulder. Her hair was under his nose. She smelt good. He put his hands around her. She leaned closer. He was in heaven. He felt the love, the chemistry. They ended up in a motel.

***

She didn’t bring a gun. It was too risky. But she didn’t have to. Inside the rented room, he brought out a gun and loaded it. He was quick, but she saw the rectangular magazine slipping into the base of the gun. Never be taken by surprise, he said. She smiled. He dropped the gun on the table and returned to her. They started to kiss and his erection started to probe her thighs. She took control and pushed him on the bed. He fell flat and easy, with a smile of ecstasy etched on his face. Then she turned around, picked up the gun, and pointed it straight to his head. No epilogues. Click. Click. But there was no report.

***

The rectangular magazine was not a magazine, but one of the candy bars he had picked up at the cinema. From behind his waist, he produced his pistol. No epilogues. No Never-Be-Taken-By-Surprise speech. With great grief clotting his heart, he aimed for her goddamn forehead. Bam Bam."

The highlight events of this story are:
1) The visit to Don in the Barack.
2) The relationship that ensued the meeting
3) The visit to the motel
4)  The romance in the motel
5)  The disappointing attempt by Chukwu
6)   Chukwu's death.
The climax of the story is the death of Chukwu, this also happened to be the main effect. Chukwu died because she missed her attempt to kill Don. Though right from the onset, event 5 was also the cause of the events 1-4. However event 5 was not an initial event but a motive. So motive is not an event based cause but an intention based one. Intermittently, events 1-4 are the minor effects of the motive cause (5), however events 1-4 is a progression of cause and effect on themselves.
I don't intend confusion here, however motive cause which is a master effect will have an influence as a drive on whatever other events happen in the story. However the individual events driven by the motive would have their own individual cause and effect. Though Chukwu's cause motive was to kill Don, which was what led to the visit and hence sparked love, however the advent of love was a progression from the main effect of the motive which is the visit. Hence the visit is the main cause of the event of the affair between the two pair. The relationship is the event that caused the visit to the motel which is it's direct effect. Then the visit to the motel caused it's direct effect which is the motive event, which later caused  the final event of Chukwu's death. However if we are to summarize the story in one cause and event.
The motive cause is the main cause and the climax event is the main effect. In as much as events are very vital to the natural order of stories, emotions and motives are as much important as well. A motive/emotion could change the status of an initial cause event to effect because it has been altered by emotion and might not stand without such emotional drive, this set a difference between an ambitious business man and a non-ambitious one as one ambition might be the cause of his sucess and the other's success would have other cause events, emotions or factors.
However a writer should avoid the unnatural order of  placing effects before cause and then going through the clumsy premise of stating the cause, though sometimes this might create a special effect of lingering mystery, especially in crimes however too much of such unnatural order will get your story too confusing to be appealing to reader's taste.
Until I share the next installment.
Thank you for reading.

Abd-afeez Abd-hamid for the museguide team.