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how to write characters

The Power of Asking ‘Why?’: Improving the depth and credibility of your writing

March 24, 2022 By Howard Collett 7 Comments

When I emerged from the diminutive mosque in a remote African village, I had a burning question. It came to mind while sitting reverently during prayers which the Imam had graciously invited us to observe.

I was a writer and photographer in Sierra Leone with two senior missionaries and a two-person video crew for LDS Charities filming a documentary on clean water projects (see more).

The village was home to a thousand people: half Christian, half Muslim. After thanking the Imam for his invitation, I asked him, “How do you get along with the Christians?”

Asking the right questions

The puzzled look on his face mirrored his reply: “What do you mean?”

Stammering, I said, “Well, half of the village is Christian, the other half is Muslim. How do you get along?”

When he gave the same response again, I wondered how much English the Imam understood. Then I realized his point-of-view on world issues was vastly different than mine. The village had no electricity, no running water, no televisions, scant public transportation (unless you call the back of a motorbike or the top of a cargo truck public transportation), few cell phones, and no world news.

To provide perspective, I mentioned that throughout history Muslims and Christians had battled each other. Then I repeated my original question.

We work in the fields side by side just to survive. What is there to fight about?

The Imam answered, “You don’t understand.” Then he gave me perspective. “The Christians helped us build our mosque. We helped them build their houses. We work in the fields side by side just to survive. What is there to fight about?”

Perhaps I should have first asked “why.”

Getting to the point

Not too long after my trip to Africa, I interviewed a science professor at BYU in Provo, Utah. He was renowned for his work in a particular field. I asked him why his work was so important. He answered with a barrage of scientific jargon, little of which I understood.

Unfortunately, I repeated the mistake I’d made with the Imam by asking the professor the same question again. His answer was mingled with words such as “leading research,” “peer-reviewed trials,” breakthrough technology,” etc.

Flustered, I blurted, “Why should I care?”

Startled, he looked at me thoughtfully, then answered, “It’s a possible cure for cancer.”

“Now I have a story,” I said. And a headline, I thought. People don’t care about a process until they can see the potential impact it can have on their lives.

For example, when Joseph Smith walked into the Sacred Grove that spring morning in 1820 to ask which church he should join, he had little knowledge about the nature of God. He received an answer to the “which” question but also learned why. God revealed the nature of Himself and His Son, knowing it is easier for us to pray to a God we can comprehend rather than a nebulous, unknown being. And that understanding would be essential for the revelations that followed in the years to come.

Who knows where “why” will lead

My final story comes from a sister missionary in Germany. My wife and I were senior missionaries and district leaders for an all-sister district. Wanting to know why they decided to serve missions, we asked questions. Our dialogue with this particular sister went something like this:

“What did you do before you started your mission?”

“I played soccer at a junior college.”

“How did you do?”

“I scored a lot of goals.”

When you think you have all the answers, ask one more question.

I could have ended there, but I’d learned when you think you have all the answers, ask one more question.

“Why?”

“I was the smallest player on the team,” she said, “so I knew I had to be faster, smarter, and more determined than anyone else.”

Now I had something to write about. I knew the why as well as the what and how. In fact, the physical characteristics and personality of the female protagonist in my novel are based on our missionary’s answer. You never know where asking why will lead you.

Asking questions leads to discovery

Asking questions while researching your book (or preparing for a presentation, podcast, interview, etc.) will add depth and understanding to your work. Ask questions of your characters to understand them better and make them more believable to your readers. We told our missionaries in Germany to ask questions before they started teaching. It not only endeared them to their friends, but their answers about their joys, concerns, successes, and failures often led to gospel discussions.

The concept of asking the right questions is not new, as Simon Sinek described in his acclaimed book, Start with Why. His Ted Talk on the topic has 56 million views. Simon says every inspired leader or innovator asks the question “What.” A smaller number ask “How,” and very few ask “Why.”

The essence of “why”

The plot in my upcoming novel, Erika’s War, is about uranium being smuggled from Germany to Russia. There, the Russians will generate vast amounts of electricity and sell it to the Germans at an extremely low price. The conspiracy will drive renewable power and other sources of electricity out of business, eventually giving the Russians economic control over Germany on a scale not seen since the Cold War.

Plausibility for my plot is strengthened when I discovered that growth of renewable sources of energy is already faltering in Europe. Asking the right questions gave me the why. For example, I discovered that villages in Germany are taxing wind farms for noise pollution and limiting encroachment to two kilometers. This raises the cost of land acquisition and wind farm operation, and increases the likelihood of acceptance of lower-priced energy from Russia.

“Why” has to do with purpose, cause, or belief, not results. It’s the reason Christians and Muslims get along in Sierra Leone. It’s the reason the science professor spends untold hours of research. It’s the reason my soccer player was so good. And it’s the reason the protagonist in your novel just might prevail.

Author Bio

Howard Collett has two novels in production, Erika’s War, a spy novel set in contemporary Berlin, and Lost in the Wilderness, the tale of a 10-year-old girl lost in Utah’s Uinta mountains. He has published 1,600 articles and 300 photos in aviation, medicine, software, and education in national and international magazines. His capstone achievement documented life-saving humanitarian aid on four continents. Visit www.howardcollett.net for more information.

    Filed Under: Articles, Craft Skills, Faith & Mindset, Productivity, Writing Tagged With: digging deeper, how to ask questions, how to conduct interviews, how to write characters, researching, Writing

    Showing Versus Telling to Write Compelling Dialogue

    June 2, 2021 By Emma Heggem Leave a Comment

    By Emma Heggem   

    To write a good conversation, you first need to be picky about what conversations make it into your book. A conversation that doesn’t affect the story, no matter how dynamic, realistic, and well-written, will feel like an unnecessary aside. Dialogue takes up a lot more space than narrating a conversation would. It needs to earn that space by showing readers something important. Characters need to learn valuable information through the conversation, whether that’s the password to their bank account or the state of another human being’s emotions. The things that are talked about must change the story or the character by being known.

    There are some things that come across particularly well by being shown to readers in a conversation. One example is relationships. Readers don’t like to be told about a relationship between two characters. They want to feel the connection for themselves, which means that it is very important to show relationships and show them changing over the course of the book. Downtime or relationship-changing moments for characters, including dialogue, can help readers feel the bond between the characters and be invested in the relationship. This is true whether the relationship is improving or declining. Inter-character conflict is just as important to show as characters falling in love.

    Decisions can also work well as dialogue conversations. Inner monologues can get tiring to read and can drift into angst or get repetitive. Real people mull over the same thing again and again when making a decision, but characters need to avoid boring their readers. One way to show them pondering a decision without sitting inside their head and going in circles is to have them talk their decision through with another person. This pushes them forward and forces them to move through each part of the decision and then move on. When the character weighing the decision gets bogged down, their friends or listeners can express the same frustration the readers will be feeling and cut them off.

    Another excellent use of dialogue is to provide the reader with an active and dynamic account of events that your point-of-view character wasn’t present for. This can help tone down unnecessary telling in your novel. The characters who were present can retell the story, be asked questions, and even be unreliable when it suits your needs. That’s much more interesting than a factual summary of important events.

    Speaking of things your point-of-view character doesn’t know, dialogue is a great way to show readers the emotional state of your other characters without necessarily cluing your POV character in. Is one of your characters keeping a huge secret? Is a side character madly in love with your oblivious main character? By showing the conversations directly to the reader, you allow the reader to pick up on things that the point-of-view character doesn’t notice. This can help fill in the blanks and explain complex side-character motivations without having to switch POV.

    As with most forms of showing, dialogue takes up more time and space than narration does. Choosing which conversations to show your readers is a very important step towards making sure that the conversation will be compelling. Don’t waste time with dialogue that isn’t going to strengthen your story. Focus on the moments that readers truly need to hear (read) about and you will end up having a much easier time keeping them interested and invested.

    Happy writing!

    ———————————————————————————————

    Emma Heggem is the managing editor with Future House Publishing. She specializes in content editing sci-fi and fantasy novels. She has worked with authors from around the world to prepare their manuscripts for publication. When she’s not editing, she attends writers conferences to take pitches, give critiques, and talk to aspiring writers about the mysterious world of publishing. Emma graduated from Brigham Young University with a degree in English language and a minor in editing.

    Filed Under: Articles, Craft Skills, Writing Tagged With: blog, compelling dialogue, Emma Heggem, how to write characters, how to write dialogue, Latter-day Saint, Latter-day Saint Publishing and Media Association, LDS, LDS author, LDS authors, LDS writers, LDSPMA

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