Every novel seeks to answer a question. The question could arise from the premise, What if______meets_____, to which the plot of your story delivers the answer in showing what ensues when X meets Y.
On another level your novel could raise a question that plumbs the depths of human personality and consciousness. Why is it that we humans tend to inflict the greatest pain upon the ones whom we profess to most love?
Every story or novel questions a certain aspect of human interaction, brings focus to the intense realities of life and living.
Writers benefit greatly from not only anticipating, but also seeking to identify the questions our stories raise, or inject into the ring of human discussion by our very act of crafting the story.
Gaining a sense of that for which the plot of our story, or novel seeks to answer provides a map of the trajectory that the narrative will travel. Knowing this we can glimpse of the highest point of the overall drama of our story.
Realizing the high point or climax or the story you are writing is akin to standing at the base of Mt. Everest and holding a map that indicates the very point at which you are located in the Himalayas with a line going from that point to the top of Everest.
This kind of forethought and understanding of the terrain your story seeks to travel gives way to all sorts of creative ideas that clarify the path between the novel’s opening, and the place where the wave of human interaction crests yielding the peak experience of change and transformation.
Every story offers the reader an opportunity to journey outside her or his world of activity by entering into that of another.
Knowing as a writer where the germs of your story desires to take the reader and you, allows more time and energy for you to flower the way with surprises and particulars that make travel all the more engaging and memorable, for them, and again, also for you.
What most perplexes you about human interactions?
When do you get a sense of your story’s climax–before, during or after the writing the narrative?
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