Writing Words for Nerds #AtoZChallenge—Q is for Questions (Do you need them?)

Yes, a writer needs questions. You simply can't do without them. 

But why? 

Keep reading, and I’ll tell you.

I once worked under an arts-and-entertainment editor who gave me this classic piece of newspaper advice: “Tell ‘em. Then tell ‘em. Then tell ‘em again!”

I knew what she meant. I had already learned about the journalism pyramid. You start with maybe one sentence that says what your article is about. Your second paragraph says what it’s about, but says more about it. Your final paragraphs go into more detail about the topic of your article. You tell ‘em about the topic of your article. Then you tell ‘em. Then you tell ‘em again. The reader gets the gist of the entire article in that first sentence. The rest is just the same thing in greater and greater depth. If you just want the headline, you’ll stop reading there. And if the headline grabs you, you’ll continue reading until you’ve reached the depth you’re looking for.

A classic piece of journalism advice, but the more I looked at it, the more I realized that format that worked so well for news didn’t quite work for feature stories.

People read the first pages of the newspaper to be informed, but when they read the magazine or the features section, they read less to be informed and more to be entertained. If you tell ‘em once at the very start what the feature piece is about, readers have no real reason to read the rest of the article. No, I decided. I need to find some other way to get readers to keep reading.

So I came up with my own rule: hook ‘em. Then hook ‘em. Then hook ‘em again!”

And it worked! Readers liked my feature articles, and I won praise and respect from my editors. In a short time I worked my way up from being a freelance arts-and-entertainment writer to the newspaper’s consumer columnist. I had two pages in the magazine, and another half a page in the middle of the week. Readers like to be hooked. I guess you could say we’re hooked on it.

But what exactly is a hook? And how do you hook ‘em again and again?

A hook is something in your story that grabs your reader and makes that reader want to keep reading. For example, if I start a book with the main character lying in bed wondering if he’s going to die by morning—and if that’s not the worst thing that could happen to him over the next few hours—that’s a pretty good hook. 

In the beginning of Why My Love Life Sucks(The Legend of Gilbert the Fixer,book one) the reader has to keep reading to find out what’s going to happen next. And that is a hook.

Basically, a hook is a question the writer plants in the reader’s mind, a question the reader won’t know the answer to unless the reader keeps reading. It can be written as a question. The first words of Toren theTeller’s Tale are “Who are you?” It takes the rest of the book to get a complete answer, and it is a doozy. But it doesn’t have to be spelled out like that. In most novels and short stories, the hook is a conflict or problem the audience wants to see resolved. Will Cinderella escape life with her cruel stepmother and stepsisters? Will the Light Side defeat the Dark Side? Will Gilbert get turned into a vampire, and why did a gorgeous girl who could have any guy she wants pick this extreme geek, anyway? You won't know the answer unless you keep reading. 

Some writer once said that every novel is a mystery, and that’s true. The writer plants a question in the reader’s mind on the first page, and the reader has to keep reading to discover the answer to the question and solve the mystery. If the mystery isn’t solved by the end, the writer has broken the unwritten author-reader contract, a contract that basically says that if the writer plants a question in the reader’s mind at the start, the writer will provide the answer to that question by the book’s end. All important questions will be answered. All important matters will be resolved. It might not be a happy ending, but it will be a resolution. It's vital that the author fulfil his or her part of the contract. 

Hook ‘em. Then hook ‘em. Then hook ‘em again works with pretty much any piece of writing that isn’t news and isn’t meant to be boring. Just plant those questions in your reader’s mind, and watch how your reader gets hooked.

So why does a writer need questions? Are you still here?

Well, I guess that's your answer.  

Have a character but no plot? Three easy steps you can use to make one

If you have an idea for a character but don't know what to do with it, here are three easy steps that will help you create a great story:

1. find out what your main character wants most and make him/her want it or need it more and more.

2. find something that prevents him/her from getting that thing and make the obstacle bigger and more urgent (it can be internal, another character, or the world your character is in). 

3. bring the conflict to a head until the character resolves it by getting what he/she wants, letting go of what he/she wants (and possibly getting something better in return), or coming to accept being without the thing he/she originally wanted. 

A plot can have several steps, so your main character can start out wanting one thing, get it, and then want something else.  For example, in The Cat in the Hat, the main characters ("me and Sally") want something to relieve their boredom until they get it; then they want to avoid getting in trouble. 

These three steps have infinite possibilities depending on the main character(s), other characters, setting, style, and want/need.

If you have an idea for a plot but not a main character, you can easily turn that plot into a main character, too: whatever the objective of the main character in a plot is supposed to be, create a character who is strongly motivated to achieve that objective. Create other characters who are strongly motivated to stop the main character from achieving that objective. For example, some of the people who are motivated to solve a crime are a detective, a reporter, the accused, the victim, and the likely next target. Notice that the more motivated the character is to achieve the objective, the more compelling the story becomes. 

Another Geeking Awesome Review for Why My Love Life Sucks!

"Great ball of fun with vampires wrapped up very nicely with a great cover and catching title. It is worth checking out, trust me." Thank you, Jenn Renee Read, for your review of Why My Love Life Sucks. 

You are geeking awesome, you know that, right? 

I'm so super psyched right now I could just scream... 

YayYYY!

You can read the rest of the review by clicking here.