TASK DEFINITION: You will be given a summary of a story. You need to create a question that can be answered from the story. You can create a question about characters, events, facts and beliefs, etc. Your question should be specific, try not to use pronouns instead of full names. As the stories are sometimes movie plots, they will contain actor names in parentheses. You should not use those names. Only use character names. Try to ask a question about all parts of the plot, not just the beginning.
PROBLEM: Nicky Rogan has written several plays and has achieved success. It is now opening night of his latest effort, and all around him assure him that this one will be the best yet. But as opening hour approaches, Rogan falls prey to doubts and fears, egged on by another playwright whose last work was trashed by the local newspaper's new drama critic, Steven Schwimmer. He eventually lets those fears drive him to adopt a resolve to kill the critic (who he assumes will also trash his play), and he procures a handgun with which to perform the deed.
Instead of attending the play's opening night Rogan spends the time in a bar, accompanied by a lady cab driver and her grandson; earlier in the evening the lady misidentified Rogan as a local small-time hoodlum, and Rogan does not correct her misidentification.
They watch the most crucial Game 6 of the World Series playoff between the Boston Red Sox and the New York Mets. The Sox had won 3 games and could clinch the title by winning Game 6, but Rogan, a lifelong Sox fan, knows how easily they can lose when they should win. He spends the evening waiting for the inevitable, even though the Sox are ahead most of the time. When the inevitable does occur (due to an unexpected pair of errors at the end of the final inning), he snaps, and heads out to take out his rage on the newspaper critic.
He not only finds the critic, but finds him in the early stages of deflowering the playwright's daughter. He begins firing wildly, but is finally calmed when he learns that the critic is equally devastated by the Sox's loss. They end up together, watching an interminable rerun of the final error on a small television set in the critic's apartment.

SOLUTION: Where does Rogan go during opening night of his latest play?

PROBLEM: The story begins with an account of how geologists in the mid-1960s came to understand that the "Kiowa fault" in the state of Colorado was actually part of a larger fault system running along the eastern edge of the Rocky Mountains from Texas to the Canada US border. In the summer of 1973 the land east of the fault slips downward, slowly but inexorably over the next few months, until the major rivers of the region (including the Mississippi) flood the new lowlands. The process is slow enough for people to flee eastwards, though conditions become more and more hazardous as the flooding increases.
The story recounts how, during this time the various authorities such as the Federal government and the State governors, try to quell panic by invoking patriotism or, in the case of the governors, the stalwart nature of the people of the "great Southland".
However the next act of nature proves even more cataclysmic. The Gulf coast of the United States, from western Florida to Lake Pontchartrain, simply sinks below sea level. The sea floods the new lowlands from the Texas Panhandle to North Dakota. As many as 14 million people perish. The state of Oklahoma is completely lost, as are most of the Dakotas, Kansas, Nebraska, and Arkansas. The Ozarks become an archipelago.
There are tales of amazing escapes mentioned in the story, and of foolishness, as for instance when the governor of Kansas decides to stand fast and is wiped out along with most of his state.
Finally the country is left divided by a new inland sea, almost as big as the Mediterranean. The economy recovers, and the climate of the inner part of the country actually improves due to the moderating effect of this large body of water. The state of Wyoming becomes "a new Riviera" while Missouri is a "second California". Minnesota loses its famously Arctic winters.
The author comments wryly on the political fallout. The states which kept some portion of their land above water eventually demand their full representation in Congress, including two Senators each for several states which exist only as slivers of land.
Trade and commerce flourish on the new waterway. Eventually the new sea can be fished to great profit. The story ends with an optimistic view of a vibrant future in which "fleets of all the world sail...where once the prairie schooner made its laborious and dusty way west!".

SOLUTION: What happened to the governor of Kansas?

PROBLEM: Paula Power inherits a medieval castle from her industrialist father who has purchased it from the aristocratic De Stancy family. She employs two architects, one local and one, George Somerset, newly qualified from London. Somerset represents modernity in the novel.
In the village there is an amateur photographer, William Dare, who is the illegitimate son of Captain De Stancy, an impoverished scion of the family. Captain De Stancy represents a dream of medieval nobility to Paula.
She is attracted to both men for their different virtues but William Dare decides to intervene to promote his father in her affections. He fakes a telegram and photograph to make it appear that Somerset is leading a dissolute lifestyle. His subterfuge is discovered by Captain De Stancy's sister Charlotte who has befriended Paula.
She decides to tell Paula the truth and Paula pursues Somerset to the continent where he has gone mistakenly believing Paula and the Captain to have been married. She finds him and they are reunited and marry. The castle burns down and Somerset proposes to build a modern house in its place.
The last line has Paula summing up her dichotomy of mind between modernity and romantic medievalism, and thus the two men, also emphasising the title "a Laodicean" (someone indifferent or half-hearted) "I wish my castle wasn't burnt; and I wish you were a De Stancy!" The usage of "Laodicean" to mean someone lacking commitment comes from a reference in the New Testament:
To the angel of the church in Laodicaea write: "These are the words of the Unchanging One, 'the witness faithful and true, the beginning of the Creation of God': I know your life; I know that you are neither cold nor hot. If only you were either cold or hot! But now, because you are lukewarm, neither hot nor cold, I am about to spit you out of my mouth."
Revelation 3:14 16 OEB

SOLUTION:
Who is William Dare's father?