NAR-004 Hard constraint layer: document

Events cause later events

IF a major event has no causal, motivational, or thematic relation to what precedes it, THEN connect, foreshadow, move, or remove it ELSE retain.

Why the rule exists

Narrative coherence depends on more than chronology.

Condition

The rule fires when this evaluates true. Paths marked below must be present in the fact base; the engine reports the rest rather than guessing them.

ALL
- event.major eq true
- event.relation_to_prior eq "none"

Facts this rule reads

Fact paths read by NAR-004 and whether the analyser derives them
Path	Source
`event.major`	You supply it
`event.relation_to_prior`	You supply it

Then

repair — target event

Else

retain — target current_text, No triggering condition is present.

LAKA

Smallest sufficient intervention

Yes

Primary axes

Sources

Story — Robert McKee
Scene design, causality, conflict, and narrative structure.
On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft — Stephen King
Writing habits, revision, description, and storytelling craft.

The raw rule record

Verbatim from 13-narrative-rules.json. Also available at /v1/rules/NAR-004.

{
  "id": "NAR-004",
  "name": "Events cause later events",
  "domain": "narrative",
  "layer": "document",
  "strength": "hard_constraint",
  "human_logic": "IF a major event has no causal, motivational, or thematic relation to what precedes it, THEN connect, foreshadow, move, or remove it ELSE retain.",
  "when": {
    "all": [
      {
        "path": "event.major",
        "operator": "eq",
        "value": true
      },
      {
        "path": "event.relation_to_prior",
        "operator": "eq",
        "value": "none"
      }
    ]
  },
  "then": [
    {
      "action": "repair",
      "target": "event",
      "options": [
        "add_cause",
        "add_motivation",
        "add_foreshadowing",
        "move",
        "remove"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "else": [
    {
      "action": "retain",
      "target": "current_text",
      "reason": "No triggering condition is present."
    }
  ],
  "unless": [],
  "because": "Narrative coherence depends on more than chronology.",
  "diagnostics": [],
  "examples": {},
  "source_ids": [
    "BK-016",
    "BK-011"
  ],
  "laka": {
    "smallest_sufficient_intervention": true,
    "primary_axes": [
      "scope",
      "depth",
      "magnitude",
      "reversibility"
    ]
  }
}