South Park's Matt Stone and Trey Parker are storytelling geniuses! I highlight their remarkably simple but effective "but/therefore rule" in every science communication lecture I give.
@luckytran But South Park has a long history of transphobia, therefore we should be careful about promoting their work.
@skyfaller @luckytran They're absolute douches who bear a lot of the responsibility for the very existence of the "alt reich", "anti-wokeness", etc. We should be happy they're infighting with dear leader's faction and enjoying the popcorn, but not promoting them.
@skyfaller @luckytran There's a straight line from the drivel that passed as "comedy" in the late 1990s to the "nazis running amok" problem we now have.
@luckytran Great writing advice for any writer!

@luckytran

Or they just take their experience re-creating Casa Bonita with Eric and Butters!!

@luckytran That's really good advice.
@luckytran The way I put that to students in writing class was, "a list is not an argument."

@luckytran good advice, but I can think of powerful stories that "and then" all the time.

it's a good technique, but not the only technique.

@luckytran Quick, someone send this to Harlan Coben.

(I was watching “Harlan Coben’s Missing You” on Netflix the other day, and it was all “the heroin is missing a lead, and then a lead falls into her lap.” I would cut him some slack and blame the screenwriters if they hadn’t put his name in the title.)
@nomdeb