So I realized I haven't really done a writing craft thread on through lines! And I talk about them all the time and I always get questions about what I mean.

It's surprisingly hard to explain, but I'm going to take a stab at this! HERE WE GO!

THROUGH LINES: THE THREAD

(First, a disclaimer: You may see different definitions of through lines in different places. I think film uses the term more than fiction. I'm going to talk about my own understanding of it, because I find it INCREDIBLY HELPFUL, but I am not some kind of Through Line Authority.)

Okay! So the through line is basically exactly that: the continuous thread of your story that runs through all the events in the story like a necklace cord through beads.

Without the through line, you just have a pile of beads that don't particularly relate to each other.

There are a few aspects to it. One is the chain of cause and effect in your story. I've heard this described as dominoes, which is a great way to visualize it: one event in your book sets off the next in a naturally cascading chain, rather than having stuff happen randomly.

Another key part of the through line: your characters' goals & motivations. Something is driving or pulling them through this story, like the thread tugging through that line of beads. If they go off on a tangent that has nothing to do with that core pull, it can feel weird.

There's also the element of basically plot continuity. Not dropping threads or leaving them fallow for a long time, that sort of thing. If you've lost the plot, you've dropped the through line.

The through line isn't just the main plot of the book. It's very much a character thing. Core themes and moods, main character arcs, yearnings and fears and inner conflicts...all part of the through line.

Really, it's the continuous heart thread of the book.

The through line is what lets the reader stand in the middle of the road of your book (which starts at page 1 and ends at The End) and look both backward and ahead into the misty unknown. It gives them stuff to anticipate or dread or wonder about. It keeps them turning pages.

The thing about through lines is that they are WAY too easy to drop or snarl or break in drafting! I lose my through line ALL THE TIME and have to fix it.

Half the time if I'm feeling weird and lackluster about pushing on with a draft, I've lost my through line.

I didn't find my through line for THE OBSIDIAN TOWER until edits, when I realized that Ryx's sense of duty & her desire to protect her domain were the key continuous force that could push her through the whole book, everything that happened, creating tension & giving her agency.

When I was drafting TDH, I struggled because there was a big unexpected midpoint shift after which the through line was clear, but I didn't have a continuous thread for my characters to follow up to that point. I came up with a mystery for them to investigate to get them there.

Often in the midpoint of a book I'll realize that ugh, I have a bunch of scenes that could happen in any order, and writing transitions between them is torture. These are usually signs that I need to strengthen my through line!

When I realize that I have through line problems, usually it means I need to take a step back and really squint at my book from a long way off.

I have to look at structural stuff like agency, goals, character arcs, and that cause/effect domino chain.

My personal favorite way to do this is just to make a list of every scene in the book. The scene descriptions are short, just a few words, like "They find the body" or "Everything catches on fire" or "Sad feelings talk."

This is great for getting a clear view of the bare story.

Often through line problems will jump out at me, like "Whoops, I repeated the SAME SCENE two chapters apart" or "Wow, everything was going in this one direction and then I have 3 scenes that are a total tangent" or "This REALLY doesn't emotionally follow from what just happened."

Reading the whole draft through can also help catch through line problems. It's so easy when you write scenes days or weeks apart to not realize that, say, your characters were REALLY FOCUSED on one problem and now they're just ignoring it and messing around with something else.

The through line is a big part of dramatic tension and vice versa. I ask myself things like:

What are the readers anticipating/dreading/wondering about at this point in the story? What do they see down the road? What's making them turn pages?

It's also inextricably bound up with agency. I need to know what my character's trying to do in the story (whether they really fully understand that themselves or not, heh) for the story to have pressure and motion, to pull that through line taut.

Often I can't even describe or articulate my through line—if you asked me to sum it up in a sentence I'd dodge the question! But I can FEEL it, I can see it, and I definitely can tell when it's snarled or broken or too slack or otherwise not working.

As with ALL writing advice, you may or may not find this works for you, and that's okay! And there are some books that deliberately DON'T have a strong through line because that's not the effect they're going for, and that's also fine.

But if this is at all helpful, yay!