Answer:
1. is only one ik
Explanation:
In my interactions with writers, the topic of the story question has come up at least half a dozen times in the last few months. It’s a topic I haven’t addressed here at the blog, so this is obviously the time for a discussion of the subject.
The story question and story problem are major components of the foundation of your story. They get a story started, they give it focus, they guide characters and readers through story events, and they even declare when the story’s end has arrived.
The story problem is what gets your protagonist involved in the events that make up your book. A problem may be a murder or the kidnapping of the president’s daughter or the meeting of a new lover who may prove to be more than just a fling.
To solve the story problem, the protagonist has to fix something, find something, prevent something, do something.
The story question arises out of the problem. Will our character—let’s call her Abigail—find the murderer or the kidnapped child? Will Abigail fall in love with Donnell? Will Abigail prevent the overthrow of the government, find the treasure, find herself?
The story problem is the impetus behind story events; it drives your main character’s actions. Needing the answer to the story question is what keeps readers turning pages.
Story events and character thoughts and dialogue should be all about solving the story problem—from the characters’ point of view—and answering the story question—from the readers’ point of view. All the elements of the story should serve the story problem and question.
There’s little time for incidentals and rabbit trails.
Absent some direct connection, a chapter about slavery in Peru has no place in a science fiction novel about time travel to the twenty-fourth century. A treatise on the making of leather shoes doesn’t belong in a lighthearted romance.
Yes, some story events serve to reveal character and increase tension or conflict and may only tangentially seem to be “about” the plot, yet you’ll find that you can’t continually serve tangents to your readers. They’ll wonder what such events and details have to do with the story, with this story.
You’ve likely run into the problem yourself. You’re reading and suddenly wonder why the main character has stopped for a vacation in Greece. If nothing from the vacation has to do with the character resolving the story problem, you lose interest. The story has lost its focus and no matter how interesting the digression, if it doesn’t lead toward solving the story problem and answering the story question, it doesn’t have a place in the story.
This doesn’t mean that a story can’t have multiple story threads and a secondary plot. It does mean that the story as a whole needs to be cohesive and that each scene should be part of the mechanism that moves the main character closer to solving the story problem.
We need secondary characters to add comic relief or to help flesh out our main characters. And we certainly need to show our characters doing more than making a beeline toward solving the problem—major characters are not one-dimensional, with only one thought on their minds at all times. And yet stories don’t wander all over the map. Characters don’t—can’t—involve themselves in every issue under the sun. Major characters focus on solving the story problem, and readers focus on seeing how the story question is answered.
And writers have to make sure that both characters are readers are satisfied.
