What makes a chord follow poorly or well from another?

5 hours ago, AngelCityOutlaw said:

A more horizontal, contrapuntal way of thinking is almost always better.

I like this thought process - I tend to write horizontally and vertically, but a solid line is a solid line lol

But that makes sense though, if each "harmonizing" voice is just a solid line that works well against the other voices, then really there's no need to think about chord structure. The harmony will just come from the counterpoint (or the contrapuntal style writing)

Although I believe they have an intimate relationship, the horizontal writing of the Renaissance and Baroque is different from what can be seen in Romanticism.
Thanks to the conducting of voices, we see amazing progressions that work very well. This period is replete with such examples. An “extreme” case is the Wagnerian harmonies.

Liszt, Consolation IV.

Each chord is preceded by its dominant.