That Is the Question
By Sarah Callender | May 13, 2015 |
This kind of hook is not as scary as the kind I mention later.
When my son was small and not overly-verbal, he went through a phase where he’d point at something (or at nothing) and ask one of journalism’s Five W’s (plus one H). Just the one, single word. “Which?” he’d say, jabbing a stubby finger at the sky. Or he’d point in the direction of a worm wriggling blindly on the sidewalk and ask, “When?” While we’d be driving along I-5, he’d spot a 747 in the clouds and chirp, “How?”
The sky and the worm questions were tough to answer, but the airplane one? Pshaw. Piece of cake.
“Hold on,” I would say. I’d slam on the brakes, pull the car over to the I-5 shoulder, hand him a container of Goldfish crackers and a latte, and begin my lecture-length explanation of how a 747 can fly, using my vast knowledge of physics, plus scientific terms like “magical powers” and “caffeinated rocket boosters” and “millions of invisible dragons.”
My husband and I got a kick out of his vague, minimalist desire to make sense of his world, and I miss the innocence of his one-word questions; these days my kids ask about AIDS and war and homelessness. Sex and mean-girlness and legalized marijuana. September 11th. How a 747 gets off the ground without the help of invisible dragons.
[pullquote]But why do we enjoy reading the questions of strangers? First, we are voyeurs. Second, we want to understand our world.[/pullquote]
We humans do make sense of the world through the asking and considering of questions. And it seems we have for quite some time. Take a look at this article from The Atlantic, in which we see quaint questions taken from an advice column in a 17th century British periodical:
Q: Why is thunder more terrible in the night time?
Q: If I [am thinking of committing] any great and enormous crime and sin (as adultery), but do not personally and actually commit it, am I guilty of the crime and sin?
Q: What is the cause of the winds, and whence do they come, and whither do they go?
The genre of the advice column was alive and kicking in the 1600s, and it has flourished ever since. But why do we enjoy reading the questions of strangers?
1) We are voyeurs.
2) We want to understand our world.
I think we read fiction (in part) for those very reasons.
And, I think we writers write fiction for those very reasons. There is no better way to comprehend something than writing our way to a greater understanding. So without further ado, let’s look at the power of questions in our fiction.
I consider two types of questions when I am writing a novel. First, there’s the all-important Dramatic Question.
In Gone Girl, Gillian Flynn reeled me in with that creepy first sentence (“When I think of my wife, I always think of her head.”) What?, I wondered. You think of her head? Not her face or her eyes or her tush? That wondering led me to ask what the fancy-pants literati call a Dramatic Question: What weirdness is taking place in this couple’s marriage? The search for an answer to that Dramatic Question urged me (and apparently sixteen zillion others) to keep reading until I arrived at the next in a chain of additional Dramatic Questions. Did he do it, and if so, why? From there, I found myself asking, Hold on. Who is the real bad guy here and what is his/her goal? and then, Wait a minute. Who on earth am I rooting for? Notice that the Dramatic Question isn’t, “What’s going to happen next?” It is much more specific, and it relates to how things will turn out, which of course relates to whether the protagonist will make the right choice, get the girl, catch the fish, outsmart the bully, find redemption, find forgiveness, find the missing clue, have an affair, have a baby, have courage, have a chance at survival. From the conflict that generates these Dramatic Questions, suspense is born.
[pullquote]While the Dramatic Question must be obvious in the story, the Meat Hooks Question may or may not be. [/pullquote]
More examples? Yes. Shakespeare, like Gillian Flynn, was pretty good at creating suspense through his Dramatic Questions: Will Hamlet find his father’s murderer? Will Romeo and Juliet make it as a couple? Will Lady Macbeth go nuts imagining imaginary blood on her hands, or will she get away with her evil machinations?
The Dramatic Question keeps the reader glued to the story (as does the Dramatic Situation, a topic for next month). But what keeps us writers glued to our works-in-progress? For me, it’s not the Dramatic Question of my story but what I call the Meat Hooks Question. Meat Hooks Question is not a fancy-pants literati term, but for me, it’s an essential element of writing a novel because it keeps me tethered to my story in sickness and in health, and let’s face it, when the going gets tough in novel-writing, and it will, it’s easy to give up on a writing project. But if the story has its Meat Hooks Question stuck in me? It still may feel uncomfy to stay, but it will be impossible to go.
While the Dramatic Question must be obvious in the story, the Meat Hooks Question may or may not be. Apparent or not, I must find my Meat Hooks Question so compelling that I cannot give up the writing until I come to some sort of satisfying answer (or at least a few possible answers) to the question.
What does a Meat Hooks Question look like? For my first novel, it was a question that terrified me: What happens when a mother realizes she does not or cannot love her child? A mother’s love for a child is supposed to be automatic and eternal. But what, I wondered, if it wasn’t automatic and eternal for me?
Book #2’s Meat Hooks Question: What happens to our identity when we lose our memory? I have been watching my grandmother live with Alzheimer’s for nearly 20 years. She can occasionally hum Frank Sinatra’s songs, but she has no idea who she is, who her family is, who she was, who she wanted to be, who she was in relation to others. Is she still who she was, even now that she has no idea who she is?
Book #3 (my WIP) hooked me with the question: What happens to someone when she has lived her entire life in a constant state of war? I wonder this any time I hear stories of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, of Syria, of Sudan, Nigeria, Somalia, Iraq. What does war to do a person’s values and to the society’s collective consciousness?
Often, when I arrive at the end of a writing project, I realize the Meat Hooks Question isn’t apparent in the text, not even to me, but I know it has worked because it has kept my tush in my writer’s chair, searching for a way to feel less unsettled about the ambiguity and uncertainty that surrounds me.
Now you! Will you share your story’s Dramatic Question and/or your story’s Meat Hooks Question? Or, feel free to ask (or answer) a Dear Abby question that relates to you as a writer or to your WIP. Or, feel free to provide a vegetarian-friendly alternative to “Meat Hooks.” And thank you, as always, for reading.
Hook photo compliments of Flickr’s Nevile Nel.
A Middle Grade novelist (and Middle School English teacher), Sarah Callender lives in Seattle with her family. Because Sarah dislikes cleaning anything that will just get messy again, she tidies the house and weeds the yard only when absolutely necessary. This allows her time to focus on her true–and somewhat fraught–passions: writing, Abe Lincoln, and Tony’s Chocolonely chocolate bars. Equally passionate about mental health advocacy, Sarah is a member of The Stability Network. Sarah’s first novel, LUCY IN BETWEEN, will be published by Margaret Ferguson Books/Holiday House in 2026.
Now I’m stuck imaging my stories as burly butchers with blood stained aprons. And I can’t get them to keep their damn meat hooks off me. Better than their cleaver, I suppose.
And there are a lot of them (hooks, I mean). I guess the biggest is: what if our sires were murderers? Would we be tainted by that? Is it in our blood, lurking just under our skin? Then another persistent hook of mine: can we be bound by the dogmatic definition of our destiny, even if it’s foisted upon us by others? How does that imposition of expectation affect our choices? Can we really choose any portion of our destiny? Or do we delude ourselves that we’re choosing anything of substance? Or are really just feathers, drifting on the winds of the gods? There are others, but these keep a pretty good hold on me.
Thanks for setting your meat hooks in my brain this morning, Sarah!
Sorry for the images, Vaughn. You might prefer Tofu Hooks (though it would have to be a very firm tofu). Tofurkey Hooks? Quinoa Burger Hooks?
This line was so beautiful: Are we really just feathers, drifting on the winds of the Gods?
It’s beautiful (all of these questions are!) because you are a beautiful writer; it’s also beautiful because these are all such universal questions, ones connected to the questions of Who Am I? And, Is there a God who gives a rip about us? Your questions raise such an important idea: typically what hooks us as writers will also be intriguing to our readers.
While we may think we are unique in our values, beliefs and attitudes, we humans are pretty similar in what confounds, challenges and drives us.
Thanks, Vaughn, for sharing!
Sarah-
I’m amazed that you had to pull over to the shoulder of I-5 since that highway is pretty much a parking lot. Then again, that was when your son was small. Maybe traffic was moving back then.
Great questions! I love the term “meat hook question”. That got me thinking about a fiction piece I’m doing in my copious spare time.
One meat hook question might be, “how do you say goodbye to someone who is dying too young and with whom your business is far from finished?”
For me the question about the question is, how do you get the question into readers’ minds? More importantly, how do you get it into their hearts, so that it matters?
I think the answer to that starts with making characters care about the question, and meanwhile making your readers care about your characters. Those two issues are intertwined.
I so agree about the questions we much answer for our kids. Our son is African. He’s seven. His question is simple: “Why can’t I up put up my hood?” We answered that in Washington, D.C., this past weekend marching with mothers whose kids have actually been shot by police.
It’s not just a few. It’s not just recent. The meat hook question is, why are we still a racist society when we think we’re not? Then, how can we get people to care?
Your son’s question is so painful . . . and so valid. And, I would imagine, it’s one that’s so difficult to explain (partly because he is seven, and partly because this topic makes me feel shame for our country’s blind eye to the reality of racism).
But painful questions are often good questions. I almost always admire those who ask painful questions. Re: race, I thought Howard Schultz’s “Race Together” concept was poorly executed for so many reasons. But I admired his desire to ask questions about the issue no one wants to question.
I loved your point about making the characters care about the question AND making the reader care about the character. For me, I start caring about a character when I see his fragility, brokenness and humanity (even when he doesn’t see it himself). There is also something so appealing about seeing someone bumble through life, even when his life is a mess, as long as he is doing the best he can with what he has and what he has been given. Earnest characters win me over every time.
As for I-5, you must be thinking about that stretch of I-5 in LA. THAT is a parking lot. Seattle has no traffic issues, unless it starts raining, in which case everything turns into a 5-star disaster with accidents dotting the freeway. That said, it also turns into a parking lot when it’s sunny; the sun is nearly blinding to us small-pupiled drivers. Sun-blinded drivers are not typically winning Best Driver awards.
Thanks, Don, as always! You’re a great dad.
I think this is one of the most useful blogs I have read. In my first published book/story “View From the Sixth Floor: An Oswald Tale” the question was pretty obvious. What would happen if the truth about the assassination of President Kennedy could be revealed? What would happen to someone who knew the whole story? That caused me to examine my current story which is due to be released in June. Did it have a hook and was it a good one? Thank goodness I saw it right away! Of course, as in my “real” life, I have to wonder if there is more than one hook? Is it possible that one hook will lead to another until life becomes a series of questions that answer the previous questions? It’s enough to keep me awake at night. Maybe that’s the answer to my insomnia. Uh-oh, I feel a question coming on. Thanks for a thought provoking article.
Elizabeth,
Thank you for taking the time to comment! And yes, I loved the idea that one question can hook in another question . . . in an endless chain. I really do think that’s what keeps the readers reading.
I recently read All the Light We Cannot See, and that had such a beautiful chain of question hooks. Doerr is a masterful storyteller/hook-chainer.
Best of luck with your upcoming release! Such happy news.
:)
Destiny…Ah, there is a hook that will grab me every time.
Yes, Gretchen . . . the destiny question is one of those universally appealing questions!
Many thanks, Sarah. I’m in the midst of revision, and looking for the meat hook question led me not only to what it is but also to identifying a spot three chapters down the line where the main character can make her sister see why being found by the family that abandoned her as an infant is not the undiluted joy they think it ought to be.
Fabulous, Judy! So great that you were able to see your WIP with objective eyes . . . and find a way to make it even better. Not an easy feat for use who are so close (too close!) to our own work.
It always amazes me how many revisions my work has to go through (even a blog post) before I can even get it to a not-embarrassing stage. Sigh. Who knew this was such a complicated process! The authors have always made it seem so easy. ;)
Happy day to you!
:)
Thank you for this post. It gave me lots to think of, in a way I hadn’t considered. Meat Hook questions… That’s a good way to put it.
Mine?
What happens to one who has spent his life protecting others when he finds himself in a situation where he is the one who needs protection? (What does it do to him? How does it change him? Is it a welcome situation? Frightening? Humbling that others might protect him?)
I am off to look at my meat hooks now…
Great, Diana! I love those questions . . . there is a lot to play with there, in terms of change and growth. Keep going!
:)
I adore you, Sarah, and your posts.
Today you got me thinking about the questions my WIP raises. What happens when a young girl’s first love is someone she cannot fall for? Why do we let society dictate our choices instead of following our own path? Who, really, let the dogs out? Okay, okay, that last one’s not a real story question, the song just came to mind… “who, who, who?” :)
Dee Willson
Author of A Keeper’s Truth and GOT
Who DID let the dogs out? That’s my meat hooks question du jour . . . actually, I think it was my kids who let the dogs house. Either mine or yours for sure.
It sounds like a Romeo and Juliet kind of situation in your story, and that one NEVER gets old. Happy writing! Thank you for sharing your lovely questions, your humor and your kind words.
xo,
sarah
My general question is: What makes two people end up together against all odds?
The specific meat hook question is much stronger – and private. And comes down to some version of What could possibly make this happen?
I am impressed that you are willing to put yours out for public consumption. Maybe that is easier after you’ve finished several novels?
Because, for the time of the writing, you ARE those characters you create, and they have no life if you don’t give it to them, and the best characters are the ones that cost the most to write. So you are putting yourself and what you think is true on display.
I don’t think ALL writers wear their hearts on their sleeves. But I’m sure that affects a significant proportion of newbies: something was compelling enough to make us grit our teeth and learn to write – and now that compelling ‘something’ may be evident to anyone who reads.
Lawrence Block talked about writers wearing trenchcoats but desperately wanting readers to see the naked them underneath.
Maybe that wears off a bit with more books written. Maybe that is never a problem for people who tell the stories of others.
Now that I think of it, some of the writers I don’t find compelling are the ones who seem absent from their work. It is interesting – some of them do a good job of writing the stories of their characters. It doesn’t attract me.
Meat hook. Good choice of description. I’m squeamish.
Wow, Alicia. Such good points in your comment. Thank you! I am often accused of being “too” open, so I suppose my openness about my writing is not a surprise to me. That said, I did leave out some of the specifics of where the Meat Hooks questions came from . . . so as not to betray someone’s confidence or privacy.
I don’t know if it’s easier to divulge more after writing a few novels. I do know that the very kind rejections and thoughtful feedback I have gotten from Books #1 and #2 have toughened my skin. I listen to all feedback, but I don’t feel as nervous about sharing my work anymore. The worst that can happen already has, and I am still standing (or sitting).
I love the trench coat line . . . though for me, I don’t write with the hope that I can reveal myself through my characters. I write because people (and characters) fascinate me, and I want to figure them out. I care deeply about my characters, sometimes loving them as much as I love my two children. I hope that makes me “present” in my stories. I hope.
Thank you so much for all of your thoughtful, thought-provoking ideas, Alicia!
Happy writing to you.
:)
Awesome post! You made me question my own story, and I feel hopeful I have a meat hook question, which is “what sacrifices will a mother make to save her children’s lives?” (Without the “will she commit murder part, because that’s really been done to death – ha! pun not intended!)
Anyway, as I was writing the story, I’ve always felt a little out of control, and by thinking about what my meat hook question might be, it helps me see that I did follow a thread throughout, even though it seemed to be crazy off-task sometimes. Thank you!
Hi Lara,
I love your comment about feeling a little out of control. I can definitely relate to that . . . though maybe my sense of this is different from yours. I have come to like the out of control-ness when I write because I feel like the story is happening and I am just supposed to listen (and transcribe) the words. Of course, I ALWAYS have to go back and cut/edit/revise because often the sentences lack things such as, well, plot and tension and conflict. :)
I am learning to trust the feel of the story (if that makes sense) and I am learning to listen to (rather than manipulate) the characters. If I do that with my characters and my kids, things seem to work out better. I am a recovering Control Freak.
Happy writing to you!
Yes! Recovering control freak!! Me, too!
You pared this process of creating a plot down–great post. For novel number one, my meat hook is: why in a small community is one young girl allowed to thrive and prosper, while another is raped and her life uprooted from the beginning.
Beth! The moment I read your Meat Hooks question, I created a whole plot image, complete with a glimpse of the setting, era and the two girls. That must mean your question is a powerful one. What fun!
Thank you for sharing with us. And yes, plot can be son confusing to me (still!). It really astounds me. Maybe some day writing a story won’t confound me quite so much.
Thanks so much!
Great post and this is why women don’t go to the meat market in India … too much blood pouring off those meat hooks. It’s bloody business, this writing, too, but how very satisfying.
Mine, wip#1: Are you your brother’s keeper? I have really enjoyed answering this from various angles.
wip #2: Security vs Freedom? This story is as messy as the cow that’s butchered.
Sarah, I distinguish these thematic questions from the central dramatic question (which is more related to plot, ex: wip#1: will MC follow her dream to go to medical school or take care of her sister?)
Thanks, Vijaya, for the image of the bloody markets. You are absolutely right!
You are also right about the Meat Hooks question being more thematic in nature. I’m so glad you mentioned that. And, I love your question about security vs. freedom. Such a pertinent question in the US, especially since September 11th.
Thanks for your faithful comments. :)
Great post.
Lately, I’ve been thinking about the usefulness of a good dramatic question and its potential power as a beacon in a fictional ocean to guide the writer from beginning to end. Well, at least in theory. So I took it as a good omen that when I opened my emails, I found a link to your post on this very subject–and more.
Yes, I appreciate a good dramatic question. The challenge for me as a writer was coming up with one strong enough to do all the work it was supposed to do. Fortunately, you shed some light by suggesting there can and should be more than one dramatic question, especially as the story unfolds. But even more helpful is your idea of a Meat Hooks Question.
It seems the DQ is broad and for the writer not especially personal, while the Meat Hooks Question is specific and very personal, something I as a writer want to satisfy for myself (and eventually the reader) through the exploration and writing of a particular story.
Good omen, all right. You have provided another useful tool for the toolbox. Looking forward to next month’s Dramatic Situation post.
Gosh, Vincent, I love the idea of the dramatic question being a beacon to guide us (and our readers too) through the story. I always feel like I need a GPS, compass, map, but I think a beacon is a better tool. Thank you for that image!
And yes, that’s exactly how the MH question differs from the D question–it’s all about how personal it is. Thanks for rephrasing that too.
I will also be curious to write the post on dramatic situation . . . writing about these tricky (tricky, at least, for me) forces me to really understand and absorb the concept.
Thanks so much for your comments! Happy writing to you.
:)
What a great post! And I love Vincent’s comment “It seems the DQ is broad and for the writer not especially personal, while the Meat Hooks Question is specific and very personal”. Differentiating between the two is important for me. At the beginning of a project, all I see is my own personal hook; it sometimes takes me a while to see how that becomes the dramatic question.
For my memoir, my meat hook was: Can I persuade people to look past the stereotype of a welfare mom by giving them the story of a single family (mine)?
For my WIP, a novel, it is: When do we give too much? How do we balance doing for others with doing for ourselves?
These are different from the DQs. For the memoir, the DQ is: How does a middle-class girl end up on welfare, and how does she survive there? For my WIP, I have a couple of different ways of articulating the DQ, so more on that later.
Yes, Barbara! The same happens to me. The story starts with my MHQ and then I see the DQs start to appear. It’s very cool.
And I love all of your questions. I’m so glad that you brought in the idea of memoir too! My two critique partners wrote memoir . . . and right away, I can think of their MHQs. I suppose there has to be both types of questions in non-fiction too, right? Thanks for expanding my viewpoint. ;)
Meat hook questions…hmm. You’ve given me something to think about. By the way, Sarah, I just love the meat hook questions you shared from your three books. You’ve demonstrated for me how important it is to have a powerful, compelling question that pulls you onward–because it’s not just about you the writer, but also the reader too. The passion of creator and of the audience needs to converge.
I can’t say I am aware of any predominant (non-generic) meat hook questions in my own approach to my current novel. That’s not to say I don’t have meat hook questions, only that in my current work I don’t have one central question that drives me onward. In thinking about your post today, I’ve realized I have quite a few that all present themselves subtly in the changes of the characters whose heads I’m in. (Maybe they’re just tiny fishing-worm hooks?)
There is one universal question, though, that I always ask: “What’s it like to go through this?” Asking this question, with regard to the character whose arc I am exploring, generates the story. For example, one of my characters falls in love with someone who is toxic, but this toxic love compels him to also believe in his dreams–something he’d never been able to do while living under the weight of self-imposed guilt over his father’s death. But he’s going to lose this love, tragically, and this is going to shatter him worse than ever before…and yet, amidst all the brokenness and the descent into so much pain he is going to knit himself together again, letting go of the false belief that duty is more important that passion. Every time I enter his head and breath life into more of his story, I’m always asking: What’s it like to go through that? What does this say about life? What can he teach me? What can he teach others?
Thematically, my novel explores various aspects of the question, “Is it right to suppress freedom of expression for the sake of altruism?” I explore it in many aspects of the characters’ narratives, but also in the overall fabric of the world itself. I’m exploring a question, not preaching an answer, and so to me, the writer, I want to demonstrate different considerations to this question, which is a highly moral question that has no simple, clear-cut answer. Is that a meat hook question? Well, I’m not sure. Perhaps it’s more of a meat hook prompt. It certainly compels me to keep writing (and revising) and I hope it will have the same effect on readers.
Thank you, John. This was so helpful . . . for the record, I absolutely think you have a MH question-prompt. And it’s beautiful.
I loved your point about not being preachy. I had that in my post at first, but it was about 500 words longer than I wanted it to be so I had to cut it. My point was two-fold: 1) No one likes to be preached at in a novel and 2) Plant the question in the reader; don’t force an answer upon the reader.
I don’t know about you, but I find the Dear Abby questions much more interesting and entertaining than Dear Abby’s answers. In reading the question of a stranger, I can wonder: What’s it like to go through that? And, What would it be like for ME to go through that?
I love that you ask that question (probably many hundreds of times) as you write. It means your readers will be able to look upon your characters with compassion, and it means your characters will be rich, round, breathing, warm-bodied people. With characters like that, who can stop reading?
I always look forward to your thoughtful, helpful comments, John.
:)
Working on my last manuscript, I guess my meat hook question was, “If I had been alive during the 1860s or the 1960s, how would I have behaved regarding questions and issues of race?” I had no idea it would be so timely when I was writing it, as it was before the recent unrest all over the US. I was sort of surprised to discover that I sympathized more with radical black separatists in the 1960s and decided I would have found it very hard to participate in nonviolent civil disobedience.
For my current WIP, I think the meat hooks questions for me are:
– What do we lose as we become a digital culture (specifically when it comes to books, writing, notes, etc.)?
– How do we navigate the tension between wanting to be truly known and wanting to maintain our privacy and our dignity?
That is fascinating, Erin! I love what you realized about yourself. My husband had the opportunity to participate in a “Race Seminar” (for lack of a better name) and from this, he (an easily-sunburned white guy) realized he actually identifies most closely with black women. Who knew?
That is certainly one of the most exciting things about writing . . . what we learn about ourselves in the journey. I suppose that, in itself, is a big meat hook.
Thank you, Erin, for sharing. Each of your questions has me Velcro’d.
:)
Sarah, I spent a portion of yesterday trying to think of the meat-hook question for a VIBIP (Vague Idea Barely in Progress). It has a bit of a cliché ring, but it’s “If you are given a heart not your own, what do you owe the giver?” I saw a short film about a boy who been given a heart to replace his failed one, and the stirring stuff that happened when he visited the donor’s bereaved family.
The larger concept has been done before, but there are all kinds of explorations of whether you’re a different person, having now a different heart, your life moving on with another gone, if your soul is affected, if there is a soul to be affected, how families could be broken or restitched in consequence of the heart’s movement. Meaty, possibly with hooks.
By the way, I’m thinking of committing adultery on a night with deep thunder and frightening winds. Any advice?
Meaty indeed! And I wonder . . . does having the heart of someone else change how you love others? Does it feel like a stranger is inside your chest? The heart, as a symbol, is so full of possibility too.
Keep marinating that idea. It has serious legs. And heart.
As for your question: You should absolutely NOT have an affair with a heart donor in a windy, thundery storm. No good can come of that.
Thank you, Funny Man!
:)
Hmm, I will need to ponder your post for a while. I don’t have enough creases on my brain to respond in such a short period of time.
Is that what determines my smarts? Brain creases? I am going to put away my brain iron straight away. Thank you for letting me know, Dr. BBK.
Sarah,
Wonderful article, as always, although I didn’t realize “which” was one of the five “w’s” (and one “h”). ;)
I used to write Dear Abby all the time — was never published then, either — but one question you asked, yet didn’t answer (completely) was: Why do we enjoy reading the questions of strangers? Because we have the same questions.
We just don’t ask them out of fear (instead, we hope someone else asks), or because we don’t know where to go for the answers, or even because we may not know we have those questions until someone else voices them, but for me, that’s what keeps me glued to a book. If I have those same questions, I want to see how these people (or characters) answer them.
My big, fat, Greek Dramatic Question for my current wip is “How did the relationship between father and son get this bad?” As we follow the story, more questions about their relationship arise, but that’s the underlying theme. My Meat Hooks question would be “What caused this seemingly normal, middle-class family to fall apart at the seams, and can it ever be rebuilt?” Or something to that effect. I’m still working down to the bones with it. Carnivorously.
Hey, what can I say? I’m a meat-and-potatoes man.
Again, wonderful words. Thanks.
I laughed out loud when you caught my “Which?” faux pas. Thank you! I guess now I need to cross off Whale? Wizard? Wackadoodle? off my ever-growing list of W’s. Clearly I was an English major NOT a journalism major.
I love the meaty possibilities of your father-son questions. I love it because it has been done (ergo, it clearly resonates with many generations of readers). I also love it because everyone has a father, present or not. It is a relationship rife with complex issues. My husband and I have been bingeing on Game of Thrones. Talk about Daddy Issues!
And yes. We read Dear Abby because we DO have the same questions . . . even if we like to believe we do not. I also think we like to laugh at the “silly” questions of strangers, not realizing how silly our questions are too.
I will, from this day forward, send all my posts to you, pre-posting. Clearly I need an editor, and clearly it is you. :)
I do love your comments, Mr. Swift. Thank you!
I’m twitchy about sharing my dramatic question and my seitan hook, but I think you’ve nailed why I’ve stuck with this WIP, Sarah. I can get lost in minutia, but whenever I think about the particular question which started this story off, I get goosebumps. We’ll see if they survive revisions. ;)
My WIP’s dramatic question is: what lengths would a widow go to reunite with the love of life, her deceased husband? And what if the only way was to inflict her suffering on her best friend by murdering her husband?
Very thought-provoking post; thank you!
After a little puzzling, this is what I came up with for my current project:
(From the beginning of the story):
What happens when the beloved home you want to protect is a disaster zone?
(After the major plot twist/reveal):
What happens when a childhood situation/relationship you thought was lost forever is suddenly returned?