The Power of Why

Hitura Rael

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Sep 29, 2018
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Northeast Ohio
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#1
Why can be the most annoying question in the world, but it is a powerful question when it comes to writing. For your readers, it serves as a hook, something to spurn readers to continue reading. Your job as a writer is to know what "why"s will pop up from reading and to control it.

Your biggest job though, is to never ever allow this to be an answer.

"Why not" and "Just Because" are cop out answers when it comes to character traits, plot, and story. If the trait is important enough to highlight it then you need a why. Why makes things interesting. Why not is for minor traits and background characters; rarely main characters and major traits. If why not is your answer to a major element, then is going to be bland, feel completely shoved in the faces of people and ultimately disappoint the reader.

Let's use this as an opening to a short story as an example.

"Thom is a green skinned boy who lives in a box and is gay."
Sounds interesting enough right? What immediately comes to mind from that one sentence being presented to you?

Why does Thom have green skin?
Why does he live in a box?
Why mention that he's gay?

Surely all these things have to do with the story, right? You read on, eager to answer the questions and see where this is going. But as you read on, Thom's green skin doesn't get reactions from other characters and other characters skin tones are never even brought up. There's no mention of his box home or how he got there. He hasn't flirted with any guys, interacted with anyone he's infatuated with, the story has no love elements, and the plot is not influenced by this fact at all! You finish the story and you never get these questions answered. You're frustrated, confused, and disappointed. These three traits weren't even red herrings, Macguffins, or Checkov's guns! When the author is asked they respond with the dreaded "Just Because" or "Why not?". More on why to not present these little details in another post.

Used properly, why leads the reader along from point to point, keeping them interested until the end and satisfied. That's why cliffhangers in TV series and movies are so effective. Recall the last book series you read, did they wrap up all the problems with a neat little bow at the end of each book? Not just the problems of the book, such as if you were to read a Harry Potter novel, where the sorcerer's stone is retrieved and destroyed, Griffindor wins the house cup, and Harry gets on the train to go home happy, but the over arching plot as well, where Voldemort is out there somewhere plotting his return. When you wrap up everything including the overarching problem, you have pretty much wrapped up the plots and story.

So how does this come into collaborative writing and character building?

The hooks of "Why?" and "What happens next?" are typically what keep your partners interested and continues the narratives. You're all working together to build a story and several plots that are entwined for a time and often repeatedly. So what happens if you don't have a why or a what happens next? Well. You're going to have two big things happen, either one, the other, or both.

1) Your partner loses interest
2) You write yourself into a standstill or corner

While there are many many causes of partners losing interest, such as elapsed time, character inflexibility, or poor plot hooks, that's a whole different rabbit trail to tackle.

Writing into a standstill though...

Let's go back to Thom and his green skin for this. Green skin is not normal in the world you're collaborating in. As you trek along, other characters are surprised by this and inquire why, but your character just brushes the question off. Until the day that they corner the character about why. You wrote Thom to have green skin because you wanted to. There's no real reason! How do you respond? Well, you're either stuck in that corner and never answer it, killing the thread and development... or...

You use the Why.

"Why" is the most powerful tool in your disposal as a collaborative writer.

Let's look at Thom's box. Why's Thom live in a box? What happened to put Thom in that box? I bet you just had a few ideas for why he's in that box. Perhaps he met with financial ruin. Perhaps he's a veteran with PTSD who couldn't adjust to being home. Perhaps he's an orphan or run away on the streets.

Ask why on all your major traits. Minor traits...not so much. "Little Johny got a scar on his knee bumping into the coffee table" is not an interesting story to explore. "Thom got green skin from scientific experimentation to have humans producing chlorophyll, escaped the lab, and is now on the run from them," is an interesting story to explore. Ask yourself and your other writers why. Ask them to ask you why.

Let's finish this with some small exercises.

"Amy joe is a ten year old girl in college. She has a C cup and is top of her class in theoretical mathematics."
"Jake can't have dogs. He also can't leave the house on nights of the full moon and hates garlic."
"Forest lives down by the river. He likes trees, but stepping outside is dangerous for him."

Identify some why's and come up with the answers.