1. How does the butterfly effect concept explain the relationship between individual events and their consequences in a plot?

2. Why is a single initial event capable of setting off a chain reaction of events throughout an entire narrative?

1. How are character, setting, and plot interconnected within a narrative's dramatic situation?

2. Why would eliminating any single element of the dramatic situation fundamentally change or destroy the story?

3. How do characters' choices at each point in the plot reveal character traits and create new effects?

1. What does Kurt Vonnegut mean by claiming that stories have shapes that can be drawn on graph paper?

2. How do plot points function as turning points where characters encounter conflict and attempt to overcome it?

3. What are the three common story shape patterns and how does each pattern show different progressions of a character's fortune?

1. What is exposition and what specific information does it provide to readers about a narrative?

2. How does exposition work together with plot to focus readers' attention on the most important details of a story?

1. How do the three typical sequences of events—beginning, middle, and end—function differently in a narrative?

2. Why might a writer choose to begin a story in the middle of action or at the end rather than at the beginning?

3. How does the order in which a writer reveals plot points highlight character traits, motivations, and development?