Every story makes an argument. Not in the “let me convince you of my worldview” way (although sometimes, yes, that too), but in a quieter, more structural sense. A story argues that this person would make that choice under these circumstances and that the consequences which follow are inevitable.
When stories fall apart, it’s rarely because the writer lacks imagination. More often, the issue is logic: it could be character logic, emotional logic, or narrative logic. Whichever it is, it’s the invisible connections that tell an audience that something tracks well.
This is where syllogism comes along.
Syllogism may sound intimidating but it’s actually one of the most powerful tools in storytelling. From novels to screenplays to game narratives, syllogistic thinking can help you:
- Clarify character motivation and character arc
- Strengthen cause-and-effect
- Strengthen story theme
- Avoid plot holes
- Test whether your story’s inner truth actually holds
You don’t need to show syllogisms on the page. But if they aren’t working under the hood, your audience will feel it even if they can’t articulate why.
Let’s break it down.
Table of Contents
- The Meaning of Syllogism in Creative Writing
- The Anatomy of a Syllogism
- Syllogism vs. Enthymeme
- When to Show the Logic and When to Hide It
- How to Use Deductive Reasoning to Build Bulletproof Character Motivation
- How to Avoid the “Logical Fallacy” in Your Plot
- Examples of Syllogism in Film and Television
- Frequently Asked Questions about Syllogism (FAQ)
- Conclusion
The Meaning of Syllogism in Creative Writing
First, here’s the load down. What is syllogism?
A syllogism is a form of deductive reasoning made up of three parts:
- Major Premise – a general rule or truth
- Minor Premise – a specific case that falls under that rule
- Conclusion – the logical outcome
A classic example of a syllogism could be:
- Major Premise: All humans are mortal.
- Minor Premise: Socrates is human.
- Conclusion: Socrates is mortal.
In creative writing, syllogism is all about narrative inevitability. A well-constructed story quietly teaches the audience its major premise (“This world punishes hubris” or “Love requires sacrifice”), introduces characters who embody or challenge that premise, and then delivers well-earned conclusions.
When a story works, the audience subconsciously completes the syllogism themselves. When it doesn’t, we get confusion, disbelief, or that dreaded phrase: “I didn’t buy it.”
Syllogism is how you make your story feel inevitable.
The Anatomy of a Syllogism
Syllogism began its life in the mind of Aristotle in a time where the screenplay didn’t exist. But stories and plays sure did!
While Aristotle didn’t care about screenplays, he cared deeply about persuasion, and storytelling is persuasion at scale. Enter his three-part argument.
Essentially, Aristotle’s syllogism operates like this:
- Major Premise – A rule about the world
- Minor Premise – A truth about your character
- Conclusion – The action they must take
For example, in narrative terms:
- Major Premise – Power corrupts those who seek it at any cost.
- Minor Premise – Macbeth is willing to murder to gain power.
- Conclusion – Macbeth will be destroyed by the power he gains.
Notice how the conclusion is a moral and emotional outcome. That’s key.
When writers skip this step, stories rely on coincidence, convenience, or spectacle to move forward. When writers lean into it, even shocking twists feel logical in hindsight.
Syllogism vs. Enthymeme
Here’s where things get especially useful for storytellers.
An enthymeme is a partial syllogism where a premise is left unstated because the audience already understands it. For example, “She betrayed him. Of course he left.” The hidden premise is something like: Betrayal destroys trust.
Most storytelling operates through enthymemes. You don’t spell out your major premise on page one like a philosophical thesis (unless you’re writing very experimental fiction). Instead, you trust the audience to supply it.
The danger with this is that if the audience doesn’t share or understand the hidden premise, the story collapses. That’s why cultural context, genre expectations, and tone matter so much. A betrayal in a romantic drama carries different assumed premises than a betrayal in a spy thriller or a dark comedy.
Understanding syllogism lets you reverse-engineer these assumptions and ask:
What am I expecting the audience to already believe? And have I earned that belief?
When to Show the Logic and When to Hide It
Okay, so when is best to reveal all in term of your story logic, and when do you keep it concealed? Well, one of the biggest mistakes writers make is being afraid of logic. The second biggest mistake is being too explicit about it.
When to Show the Logic
You should surface the logic when:
- A character is making a controversial or morally complex choice
- The audience might reasonably expect them to choose differently
- The story hinges on a decision that drives the entire plot
In these moments, showing the minor premise: the character’s belief, fear, or value, is crucial.
For example:
- A character explains why they believe violence is the only option
- A scene reveals a childhood wound that makes trust impossible
- A moment of hypocrisy exposes a flawed internal rule
In this instance, it’s a case of dramatizing the syllogism rather than explaining it.
When to Hide the Logic
Hide the logic when:
- The conclusion feels obvious because you’ve done the groundwork
- The emotional truth is universal (grief, jealousy, fear of loss)
- Momentum matters more than introspection
If the audience can say, “Of course they did that,” you’ve succeeded; the logic is working invisibly.
How to Use Deductive Reasoning to Build Bulletproof Character Motivation
This is where syllogism becomes a secret weapon. Weak motivation often sounds like:
- “They do this because the plot needs it.”
- “They suddenly change their mind.”
- “I guess they’d act that way?”
Strong motivation follows a clear syllogistic structure even if the writer never labels it as such. Here’s our step-by-step guide on how to use deductive reasoning:
How to use deductive reasoning to build bulletproof character motivation
- Define the Character’s Major Premise
Define your character’s core belief about the world. For example:
– “Love always leads to loss.”
– “If I’m not useful, I’m worthless.”
– “Power is the only form of safety.”
These beliefs are often subconscious and often wrong, but they feel true to the character. This makes them extremely relatable to the audience, helping them to buy into the story. - Apply the Minor Premise
Now place the character in a specific situation:
– They fall in love.
– They fail publicly.
– They’re offered power at a moral cost.
It’s this situation that activates the belief. - Let the Conclusion Hurt
The conclusion should be the action that logically follows, and ideally, it should cost them something. Such as:
– They push someone away.
– They lie.
– They betray a value they claim to hold.
If the audience disagrees with the choice but understands it, you’ve nailed the logic. This is how you create characters who feel authentically human.
How to Avoid the “Logical Fallacy” in Your Plot
In philosophy, a logical fallacy is an error in reasoning. In storytelling, it’s the moment the audience checks out.
Common narrative fallacies include:
- The Unmotivated Leap – a character makes a drastic choice without sufficient groundwork
- The Convenient Exception – rules apply until they don’t
- The Retroactive Justification – logic added after the fact to patch a hole
To avoid these, test your story’s syllogisms and ask yourself:
- What rule of the world am I asserting here?
- Does this character genuinely believe it?
- Does the conclusion follow, or am I forcing it?
If the answer makes you wince a little, that’s useful data you can use to improve.
Testing Your Script’s “Inner Truth”
Here’s a practical exercise:
Take a major plot decision, write it as a syllogism, and see where it breaks. For example:
- Major Premise – Family loyalty is more important than personal happiness
- Minor Premise – This character values family above all else
- Conclusion – They sacrifice their own desire to protect the family
If that conclusion doesn’t match what happens on the page, you’ve found a fault line. Either the premise isn’t true, or the character doesn’t actually believe it. If you can fix that mismatch, you can often fix entire acts of a script.
Examples of Syllogism in Film and Television
Once you start looking for syllogisms, you’ll see them everywhere, especially in stories that feel clean, inevitable, and emotionally satisfying.
Breaking Bad (2008-2013)
- Major Premise: Power and control bring respect
- Minor Premise: Walter White feels powerless and disrespected
- Conclusion: He pursues power at any cost, even as it destroys his family
The tragedy of Breaking Bad isn’t that Walter’s logic is inconsistent but that it’s horrifyingly consistent. His premise is flawed, but his conclusions always follow.
The Dark Knight (2008)
- Major Premise: Order is a fragile illusion
- Minor Premise: Gotham believes its systems and heroes can control chaos
- Conclusion: The Joker systematically exposes that belief as false
The Joker functions as a walking syllogism, forcing every character to confront whether their moral rules hold under pressure.
Fleabag (2016-2019)
- Major Premise: Emotional intimacy leads to pain
- Minor Premise: Fleabag uses humour and sex to avoid vulnerability
- Conclusion: She sabotages genuine connection until she confronts the belief itself
What makes Fleabag resonate is that the conclusion doesn’t arrive through plot mechanics, but through a shift in premise.
These stories don’t explain their syllogisms but dramatize them. The audience feels the logic long before they could ever articulate it, and that’s the goal!
Frequently Asked Questions about Syllogism (FAQ)
It’s pronounced sil-uh-jiz-um. (You’re welcome. This alone has saved many writers from low-level anxiety.)
Yes, and this is incredibly important for storytelling. A syllogism can be logically valid even if its major premise is false. For example:
– Major Premise: Anyone who shows weakness will be destroyed.
– Minor Premise: Asking for help is weakness.
– Conclusion: I must never ask for help.
This logic is airtight and emotionally devastating simultaneously. Many tragic characters operate on valid but false premises. The story’s power often comes from watching those premises collide with reality.
Absolutely, and most strong stories do. Think of syllogisms as operating at multiple levels:
– Story-level syllogism (the thematic argument of the entire narrative)
– Character-level syllogisms (each major character’s belief system and resulting choices)
– Scene-level syllogisms (why this action happens right now)
Problems arise when these syllogisms contradict each other unintentionally. For example, if the story’s major premise suggests that honesty leads to freedom, but the protagonist consistently succeeds by lying without consequence, the argument collapses.
While multiple syllogisms can coexist, they should be in conversation with each other, not fighting for control of the narrative.
Not at all. In fact, it often frees intuitive writers.
Syllogism supports your natural writer’s instinct. Many writers already think syllogistically without realizing it. They feel when a scene “doesn’t work,” even if they can’t articulate why. Deductive logic simply gives you language for diagnosing the issue.
Emotion thrives on coherence. When a character’s emotional response follows a clear internal logic, the audience feels safe enough to go deep with them. Far from killing spontaneity, syllogism ensures your emotional moments land with maximum impact instead of dissolving into confusion.
Earlier than you think, but later than you fear. You don’t need a perfectly articulated syllogism before drafting. In fact, forcing one too early can feel constraining.
However, by the end of your first draft, you should be able to articulate what the story is arguing about human behavior, what each major character believes to be true, and whether the ending logically follows from those beliefs.
Syllogism is especially powerful in rewrites. It helps you distinguish between scenes that are emotionally interesting and scenes that are structurally necessary. If a moment doesn’t serve the story’s underlying logic, it may still be beautiful, but it probably doesn’t belong.
Conclusion
Syllogism is all about making your story truer. When your narrative logic is sound, characters feel alive, choices feel earned, and endings feel inevitable, even when they’re heartbreaking.
The audience doesn’t need to know Aristotle. They just need to feel that every step of the story follows from something deeply, painfully human. Master that, and your story will both entertain and convince. And in storytelling, conviction is everything.
Is your story logic sound?
Use Celtx Beat Sheets to map your premises and ensure your conclusion hits home.
Up Next:
What Is an Analogy?
See how analogies simplify complex ideas by drawing meaningful comparisons — and learn when they’re more effective than formal logic.
