Why? Why? Why? It sounds like a simple question but it is actually the most important question there is on what you are creating. A few years ago I participated as a ghostwriter and also helped on some scripts come to life. One game/technique we used is the why game. Did we keep asking whys? on any and every subject. If you couldn’t support or defend the new element on the story it would be scratched and not used.
So how can you use it? Just ask why. Now let me warn you… it does get a little frustrating trying to defend everything in your story. This would help do two things. Get the best that the story needs and you as a writer know again everything that is in your story. This technique is not to eliminate your enthusiasm for the story. This technique is to work with your creativity. So you start asking why your characters do this and that. Why that joke is there. Why that character has to die. And though it is redundant, you need to answer those questions.
If we go again with the character, you need X character to talk, move, and react as the character profile that you created. You can’t put a shy guy to suddenly go to a crowd and sing in front of a class unless you put that character through a series of things that will help him break out of his shell. So in this sentence, you know that a shy guy being impulsive will answer you the why he can’t sing in front of a class. You know that he has to overcome that shyness and now you can create with the HOW he will do it.
Some of the people making us ask WHY as an audience these days is the MCU with their full movie sagas that are connected. So if we as an audience are asking, and looking and checking on how they have dots that are connecting and dots that haven’t connected yet, you imagine how many WHYS they had to answer. Seeing by the billion-dollar box office numbers I would say their hard work is paying off.
Usually when you see writers taking long to write their stories is either because they are outlining every single detail or asking themselves if they need X scene or X fight. But that’s the thing, good writers want to make their stories good. Great. Perfect. Writing is not a race. Unless you are in a challenge or deadline. Still, it must not be pressured until all the questions regarding your story are answered.