But Why?

But Why?

I swear this will not be as existential or pretentious as the title implies. “But why” is one of those infinite questions that one can ask until they are blue in the face and looking to smother someone in frustration, but it is an important question. Particularly for a writer.

The other day I found myself stumped. I kept running into the same scene and hitting dead ends. Nothing I started writing, no path I created was working. Some things worked in the moment but they wouldn’t work for the project over all. It got so bad I considered simply scrapping the whole 10K word project and starting over from scratch.

The problem was I didn’t have my “whys” properly established. Or to be less obtuse, the motives and goals of the surrounding characters. I had to pull back from the scene and puzzle out why these characters ended up in the position they were in, and why other characters put them there, and why those characters took further actions. I had to pull back enough to figure out actions and reasons that would never be on the page, so distant it is only an echo to the plot you’ll be reading but that foundation was necessary to figure out where the scene was going.

Life is like that sometimes. You have to pull back and look further out, forward and backward in time to make the right decision now. Unfortunately Life is not a story we control so you cannot decide what the outcome will be but you can make a guess. You can set up guide posts, goals, and questions to hit and answer along the way to make sure you’re heading in the right direction, and learn when you need to adjust.

And stories are like that too. Sometimes you need to change course because something isn’t working. Sometimes, to get things moving in the right direction you just need to ask the right “why”. Or really, any exploratory question, and that’s the trick it has to be an exploratory question. A simple direct answer will not tell you what you need to know. You need to irritate yourself with questions until you get to a point where the answers, answer themselves and turn from question, to direction.

So that’s my fortune cookie wisdom today. If you find yourself lost ask yourself “why am I lost" and follow the answer wherever it will take you.

I hope this is helpful to you my dear readers. Thank you and God bless;

~ S. Wallace