Concept

But / therefore

You might say: and then problem, causality

Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s rule: link beats with “but” or “therefore”, never “and then”. “Therefore” gives cause; “but” gives complication.

What it does

Turns a list of points into a chain the viewer has to follow.

Ask

Between these two beats, is it “but”, “therefore” or just “and then”?

Trouble

The script reads as a list; any section could be swapped with any other.

Sources

1. Trey Parker and Matt Stone, This happened, and then this happened, and then this happens, NYU writing seminar transcript, 2014What should happen between every beat that you’ve written down, is either the word ‘therefore’ or ‘but’.

Use it on your project

teardown-apply: hold "But / therefore" (but-therefore) from the teardown at https://teardownatlas.com/content-creation/ against my project

Paste it into a coding agent that has the teardown skills.

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