{"id":3949,"date":"2012-03-12T05:30:17","date_gmt":"2012-03-12T10:30:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/?p=3949"},"modified":"2012-03-12T09:59:34","modified_gmt":"2012-03-12T14:59:34","slug":"dont-answer-every-question","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/2012\/03\/12\/dont-answer-every-question\/","title":{"rendered":"Don’t Answer Every Question"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Question Mark by Stephen Heron (www.flickr.com\/photos\/sbh)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

While I’ve been busy juggling work, writing, and life, I’ve decided to set\u00a0A Magic Life<\/em><\/a> aside and write a novel that’s not so demanding of deep attention.<\/p>\n

Like Hell Comes with Wood Paneled Doors<\/em><\/a>, this novel was a screenplay first, which means I have one hell of an outline to work from and no reason to not <\/em>have a good draft of a new book in a month or so.<\/p>\n

But that’s not what I really want to talk about today. Today I want to offer a really basic writing tip: Don’t answer every <\/em>question for your readers.<\/strong><\/p>\n

What I Mean<\/strong><\/h2>\n

In the story I’m working on, a teenager is camping with his grandfather. His grandfather has cancer, and it’s no secret that he will eventually die. Yet the grandfather is having a great time camping with his grandson; so much so that his grandson thinks, “I didn’t understand how someone could be so close to death and still laugh.”<\/em><\/p>\n

Obviously, since I’m working from a screenplay, there’s a lot of dialogue to pull from — my big task is making those little bits of action something more, and maybe expand on the dialogue and thoughts the protagonist has. It’s been easy to get into a groove and add these things.<\/p>\n

While moving along, the line I shared above became, “I didn’t understand how someone could be so close to death and still laugh. Maybe that was why, though: what else did he have left?”<\/em><\/p>\n

It took all of a few seconds to delete the added line.<\/p>\n

Let Some Things Stand<\/strong><\/h2>\n

This project is another young adult (YA) novel (Hell Comes with Wood Paneled Doors <\/em>is technically a YA novel), and for one brief moment, I thought it was important to expand on what the narrator was saying.<\/p>\n

That’s a really insulting thing thing to do to a reader.<\/p>\n

“I didn’t understand how someone could be so close to death and still laugh. Maybe that was why, though: what else did he have left?” <\/em>is weaker than<\/strong> “I didn’t understand how someone could be so close to death and still laugh.”<\/em><\/p>\n

The longer example answers the thought, taking something away from the reader: the possibility of the line affecting them and stopping for a moment to think about it. The second line (original version) gives the reader something to think about.<\/p>\n

As a reader, I like those moments in a book that stop me with a question or thought. The original line is the kind of thing I’d hope would make a 15-year-old reader stop for a moment and think about what they just read. The longer version of the line takes that possibility away.<\/p>\n

Answer the Big Things<\/strong><\/h2>\n

My last completed novel, Promise<\/a><\/em>, opens with a dead person in a cave. By the end of the book, readers know how he got there.<\/p>\n

That’s a question that must <\/em>be answered because it’s part of the reason for a reader to invest time in the story. To not <\/em>answer such a big thing would be a crappy thing to do to readers.<\/p>\n

But there’s often a tendency to answer everything <\/em>as we write in an effort to ensure we get our points across. If the question isn’t a big thing, though, it’s usually best to leave the smaller questions unanswered.<\/p>\n

In this particular example, a 16-year-old wonders how his grandfather can be nearing death and still laugh. Even if a reader comes up with a different answer than the one intended, the point I hoped to make with the line is later shown.<\/p>\n

But even if that were not the case, I’d rather have a reader come up with their own answers to those little questions — to have their own experience with a story — than to tell them what to think at all times.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While I’ve been busy juggling work, writing, and life, I’ve decided to set\u00a0A Magic Life aside and write a novel that’s not so demanding of deep attention. Like Hell Comes with Wood Paneled Doors, this novel was a screenplay first, which means I have one hell of an outline to work from and no reason […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3949"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3949"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3949\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.christophergronlund.com\/blog\/tjw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}