Scripts, plots, and expectations, or “narrative providence in a medium that does not work that way”

In a story, how do you know what should happen next? Well, of the writers I know in my life, the answer to that usually comes down to “hell if I know,” “I realized in a moment of inspiration that it would be this,” or “I was halfway through writing out my elaborate plan when I decided to change everything and now it’s a lot better.” Stories are rarely perfectly-planned things, and even when you have a proper plan for everything, a willingness to change it as you get better ideas is an important skill for a writer. So, it would be wrong to claim that a writer perfectly knows everything that is going to happen as they sit down to write. It’s a more dynamic and reactive process than that. But they mostly know. There exists a story that they have set down to write, and the things they write are in service of producing that story. If they have an idea that means said story can’t happen, they don’t do it. (At most, they might try to think of a version of their new idea that can still ensure…