Elliot Kessler

Writers are thinkers. It’s in the job description. We imagine characters. We dream up plots. We weave narratives and chronicle the lives of people we made up.

But many beginning authors struggle with discovering new ideas, and every author has had to tackle writer’s block at least once. Our imaginations seem to run dry. We can’t think. We can’t dream of new plots or imagine how the lives of our characters continue. It seems to be a common struggle. But there is a quick and easy solution to both new ideas and writer’s block: asking questions.

This is the most effective solution I’ve seen during my journey learning as a writer. But I’ve discovered a method for asking questions. There is an order for which questions you need to ask when.

Inspiration

We begin with asking questions to inspire an idea. This can be anything, but I like to ask questions about people and situations I observe personally.

Look at the stranger in the restaurant next to you. Notice the nice, expensive looking steak he’s eating. Now, what if he was a cop? How can he afford to eat such an expensive meal on his own? Where’s he getting the extra cash? Has he taken on another job? Is the job legitimate?

Now look at the young man on his phone near the entrance, constantly glancing at the doorway. Who’s he waiting for? Why? What’s the purpose of their meeting? Does it have something to do with the dirty cop? Does he have illegitimate business with the cop?

Ask questions. Be observant. Look at the people around you. Ask questions inspired by the first question, or your answer to the first question. What if your phone started talking to you on its own? What if the stressed guy next to you suddenly asks for your help? What if a map fell out of your grandpa’s old journal?

You can see how these questions can inspire new stories. The core idea manifests itself. Be observant! You might miss your next bestselling idea if you don’t.

Fleshing out

Now that you have your core idea, it’s time to keep it going. Ask questions about your idea. Who’s the employer of the dirty cop? Why is he meeting with a young man in a nice restaurant? What are they meeting for?

The more questions you ask about your core idea, the more fleshed out the idea will be, and the better you understand your own story. The better you understand your story, the better you can grab your readers on the first page and hurl them through your plot. Readers want a story they understand.

But that doesn’t mean your reader has to know all the answers right off the bat. If that were the case, mystery novels wouldn’t be as immensely popular as they are. The reader only needs the essentials, and this can be shown through action.

It’s also good to make your reader ask questions about your story. Then they’ll be curious about what happens next.

For instance, you might start a story with a dialogue between two characters.

“Hey, there’s another dead dear rotting by the woods.”

“Put it with the others.”

This causes the reader to ask questions that you already know the answer to because you already asked the same questions. This piques their curiosity. Why is there a dead dear? What killed it? Why does this seem so common? Is there a dear plague?

These questions keep the reader wanting more. They’re curious about what the answers might be. As long as the questions are interesting (probably more interesting than some random mammal carcasses), then your readers will be interested.

But this can go too far, sometimes. The reader should always get an answer at some point in the story. And don’t save all the answers until the end. If the reader never gets answers or if the answers never come until the very last page, then the reader will be confused, and they’ll do the worst thing a reader can do with your book: put it down.

The answers should keep flowing. Again, you shouldn’t give the readers all the answers at once, but the reader also should not be confused. For instance, when you begin a murder mystery story, you can open the first chapter with the murder, but then there will be two questions presented to the reader. The first is who killed the victim, the second is who is this main character, and why do we care about him. (I suppose that was three questions, but it’s close enough.)

The answer to the first question can be withheld until the very last page, but the answer to the second can not. There are temporary questions that the reader needs answered quickly, but there are also bigger questions that the author can take longer in answering.

Writing the plot

Now that you have your story fleshed out and your readers are intrigued by your long-term question and the answer to your temporary question, it’s time to get into the plot of your story.

Essentially, the plot is a bunch of temporary questions stringed together like breadcrumbs for the reader. But how do you ask the reader questions? You ask yourself, first.

How do the characters get out of this situation? Do they get out of this situation? Is he going to get the girl? Who’s sending these mysterious letters? Who’s side is the masked figure on? Why isn’t the bad guy attacking? Do they know the hero is unarmed?

Every story starts with a question and ends with an answer, as does every event that occurs in a story. Think of it like a TV show. There’s a bigger story that the whole show is leading toward, but there are tons of episodes that bring the audience to that conclusion. There are a lot of big questions the episodes introduce and, at the end of the season or even the show, answer. But each episode has its own set of questions.

For an example, let’s look at the episode “Blue Spirit” from the show Avatar: The Last Airbender. In the episode, two of the main trio get a sickness, and the main character, Aang, must heal them before they continue their journey. The questions that this episode continues that were introduced in the first episode are “How is Aang going to learn water bending?” and “How is Aang going to defeat the Fire Lord?” But the smaller question introduced in this episode is “How is Aang going to heal his friends?”

Aang begins his task. He meets with an old lady who tells him he has to get some frozen frogs to heal his friends. Our question is answered.

But while getting the frogs, Aang is captured by the Fire Nation. This turn of events introduces another question. “How is Aang going to escape?”

While Aang tries to answer that for himself, a mysterious figure hidden behind a blue mask appears and rescues him. Our previous question is answered, but again, we have a new one. “Who is the masked figure?”

The figure and Aang battle their way out of the Fire Nation prison. While they’re running away, the masked figure is knocked down by an archer. Aang brings him to safety and removes his mask to find that Zuko, the young Fire Nation prince who has been his enemy from the very beginning of the story, was the one who rescued him.

Now, all our questions relating to the episode are finished. But as Aang’s friends recover and they resume their journey, the audience is given one last question to be answered later in the story: “Why did Zuko rescue Aang?”

So, as you can see, all stories are a bunch of questions and answers to those questions that lead to other questions. I used the Avatar illustration because that sentence can seem confusing on its own. So, ask yourself questions, make the audience ask the same questions, and give satisfying answers that make sense.

A good example of how not to answer questions given to the audience is The Last Jedi, the eighth Star Wars movie and, arguably, the worst one of the series.

In the previous movie, we’re introduced to a whole new cast of characters and find them in the midst of a new conflict. It presented the audience with a lot of questions. Who is Snoke? Why did Ben Solo become Kylo Ren? Why is Luke hiding in isolation on an island? Who are Rey’s parents?

The next movie decided to answer all of these questions rather than wait to save maybe one or two for the last movie of the trilogy. But that isn’t even the worst part. The worst part is that none of the answers are satisfying, which was a decision praised by critics as “subverting expectations,” but criticized by fans as disrespectful and stupid.

Who is Snoke? It doesn’t matter. He’s dead now.

Why did Ben Solo become Kylo Ren? And why is Luke hiding in isolation on an island? Because Luke sensed what Ben could maybe, possibly become, and decided the only option was to kill him (instead of like, I don’t know, talking to him or something). Ben defended himself and struck back by killing everyone else at the Jedi temple (except Luke for some reason), burning the temple, and running away, where he met Snoke. Luke responded to the situation by hiding on an island and waiting to die.

Lastly, the question everyone wanted answered. The question people on the internet had been asking each other since the previous movie released. The question everyone had an opinion on or a theory about. The question that had to have a satisfying answer. Who are Rey’s parents?

Nobodies. Losers. A nameless couple who sold their own daughter for drinking money. What affect does this have on the story? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

You can tell me all you want that The Rise of Skywalker fixed that fault by making Rey actually the granddaughter of Palpatine. But that was not the intention the writers had when writing The Last Jedi, and Disney cannot make me happy by changing their mind.

All ranting aside, my point is that if you’re going to present questions to your audience, make sure the answers are satisfying and have an affect on the story and your characters. Make your characters react to the answers, whether in a positive way or a negative way. Have the answers change the plot of the story.

Who’s the spy working for the villains? The hero’s closest friend. The hero is obviously going to have some kind of reaction to this that changes the plot and changes the character.

Who are the hero’s parents? The villains. Now your hero must grapple with whether he is good or bad. Must he answer for the sins of his father? Or can he redeem his family name by fighting his parents and doing the right thing? (Yes, I know that’s what J. J. Abrams tried to do in The Rise of Skywalker, but The Last Jedi already happened, and it was far too late to go back.)

Conclusion

Questions are what make stories interesting. A good story can have a fun plot that we’ve seen a million times before and fun characters that aren’t challenged in any meaningful way. But a great story takes those familiar plots and twists them up. It questions the plot, making the reader question it as well. It adds things that have never been seen before. The characters are affected by the twists and turns of the plot. The twists are personal to the characters, and they are challenged because of them. The answers to questions often cause characters to come up with other questions. These questions are what provoke a reader to think about your story long after the final page is read.

Stories that make me ask questions always grab me by the shirt and drag me down the rabbit hole. That’s why I enjoy authors like Orson Scott Card, C. S. Lewis, and Isaac Asimov. They ask questions, and their answers are always very interesting and thoughtful. Questions and curiosity get me much more invested than anything else, and I want to find more books that make me ask questions. Maybe yours will be next.

Thanks for reading! Have a fantastic day.