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Questions: Your Story’s Life Force

elevators in a large building

When the young woman walks into the elevator to see her childhood friend, by coincidence, their union appears to be a foregone conclusion. The audience expects the story to be about their relationship. Maybe they’ll fall in love. Maybe they’ll meet other people. Their relationship is the cornerstone to your story. 


Your foreshadowing will feed your audience’s expectations, and they’ll anticipate the ending.


No matter what your audience expects, your story should be guided by questions. 


Lawyer and scholar, Felix S. Cohen, had this to say about questions in 1929:


“Certainly we shall never bridge the chasms about a human soul with our primitive marks and noises, but if there is to be any rational intercourse between man and man, we must somehow approach the ideal of unambiguous speech. And to do this we must remember that the ideal is beyond the language that pursues it.”

For context, I don’t think Cohen was against the idea of questioning (read his piece). This is to say that language, in its current state, no matter how we use it, will always have something worth questioning. Questions are built into our nature and the nature of any communication tools we use. 


This brings us to a storyteller’s paradox. 


On one hand, a story can be too abstract and ask too many questions. On the other hand, a story could aim to answer all questions and leave nothing to the imagination. 


An audience will pursue a story to immerse themselves in and to be in conversation with. When something feels real to them, when characters feel identifiable, when there is a world on offer that they can explore, they will go back. 


They will turn to the beginning again, and they will ask questions. They will consider points of view of background characters. They might ask questions about parts of the world they didn’t get to explore. 


The story will not be incomplete. Rather, the author has so successfully built their world that it will feel infinite in possibility. 


Let These Questions Happen


Understanding when to give more information and when to stand back is key. How do writers make room for possibility while building out their world and characters in a way that feels right?


Descriptions are your best starting point. Look for scenes in your story when you’re describing a person, setting, event, action, or object. Identify the key descriptor(s), what you want your audience to remember the most. Maybe the most important quality in a locket is the engraving on the inside. Maybe the most important quality about the outdoors is that it’s raining or foggy. From there, evaluate the other descriptors and decide whether they’re important.


You know your story best. Because you know your story best, it’s difficult to expect others to understand your world and what/who is in it in the same way you do. So, don’t be afraid to let go of details that will allow your audience to impress themselves and their ideas upon your work. This is its own kind of questioning. 


Allow the “unimportant” details. This step requires care. You don’t want to derail your story or shift too much focus for too long. At the same time, your main character’s arc isn’t the only thing that’s happening in your world. While your main character is going about their business, there is an entire world outside that’s going about their business. Let them. 


Your focus will be on your main character(s) and your secondary plots. At the same time, allude to the world that’s happening around them to build out your world. Are people chatting in the corner about something your character can hear? Let us eavesdrop a little! Is the smell of freshly baked bread wafting from an oven? Delicious! Give us just enough detail that the world feels real. Even the most unimportant details can lead to new curiosities. 


Not everything or everyone is defined by its relationship to the protagonist. This is especially good advice for secondary characters, but don’t forget that there are places in your world that your protagonist has never visited and experiences that your protagonist has never had. Look at this in terms of its possibilities. 


Your secondary characters, even those who interact directly with the main character, can’t always be expected to react in a way they or the audience wants or expects. That’s because they are other characters. They have their own habits, mannerisms, experiences that have shaped their beliefs and the ways they interact with the world. Perhaps they come from another part of the world where settings and customs are different. This is a great opportunity for questions to arise. What is this other part of the world like? How is their society structured? What does an “average” home look like? How is this part of the world different? Your story doesn’t have to spend much or any time in that part of the world, but allowing it to exist creates potential for audiences to engage and speculate. 


As a writer, you’ve built your world. The questions that you create through your stories will allow your audiences to live and breathe in that world. 


Do you have questions about how to strengthen the world you’re building? Let’s nerd out about writing! Contact Purposeful Prose for a free consultation! 


 
 
 
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