Want to Write a Great Story? Ask a Great Question
By: Kevin Miller
Tags: Novel Writing, Writing, How To Write, Writing Tips, Storytelling

Photo courtesy Dean Moriarty from Pixabay

One of the most common mistakes that aspiring (and even experienced) fiction writers make is thinking they have to start out knowing all the answers. This way of thinking leads to only one place: writer’s block, a.k.a. perfectionism.

Instead of answers, all great writers start out with a series of questions. Not only does starting out without all the information make writing an exciting process of discovery, in theory, it should also make reading the finished work thrilling and surprising because there’s no way for the author to unconsciously telegraph what happens next.

I recall a quote I read early in my writing career:

“No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader.”

Let me rephrase it for our purposes:

“No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader.”

So, give yourself a break, and stop thinking you need to have everything figured out before your fingers hit the keyboard. You should have some answers (Stephen King recommends having about 60% of your story figured out beforehand), but it’s far more important for you to have a number of things you’re curious about.

Two Magical Words

Among those queries, one question reigns supreme, and it starts with two simple words: “What if?”

These two words have a magical quality in that they can take any ordinary thing and make it extraordinary. In the movie business, we call this a “high concept.”

For example, consider a simple wardrobe. What if on certain occasions this particular wardrobe functions as a portal to another world? Ask that question, and you wind up with The Chronicles of Narnia.

How about this one: children’s toys. What if they have a secret life when humans aren’t around? Ask that question, and you get the Toy Story franchise.

Or how about this: the fictional town of Barrow, Alaska. What if a pack of vampires descends on the town right before its annual 30 days of darkness? Ask that question, and you get the comic book series and movie 30 Days of Night.

One more for luck: artificial intelligence. What if a lonely, introverted, depressed man falls in love with his artificially intelligent operating system? As that question, and you get Her.

And a final one from my own experience as an author: pumpkins. What if someone inadvertently planted a pumpkin patch over an old, abandoned graveyard, and each pumpkin became possessed by one of the spirits of the dead? Ask that question, and you get my upcoming novel, Pumpkins, book 1 in the Uncanny Icons series.

I could go on, but hopefully you see how it works. Until you hit upon a unique “What if?” question, a question that no one has asked before, you don’t have a story. But once you do hit upon such a question, an entirely new world opens up.

Get Unblocked

So, if you’re struggling with your story, either blocked because you think you need to have all the answers or growing bored because it doesn’t seem to be going anywhere, first of all, stop and give yourself a break. Then step back and ask yourself why you feel so compelled to write this story. What are you eager to discover? What characters, situations, or concepts are you excited to explore?

Finally, see if you can articulate the “What if?” question at the heart of your story. Once you think you have it figured it out, tell it to a few people and see what they think. Then write it down, post it somewhere where you’ll see it every day, and start searching for the answer!