Tips To A Successful Story

100 questions to answer before writing a novel

   Before you read this please note that I did not come up with these questions on my own. I found them on a website and found they are really helpful. When you start writing a novel just on one thought or little idea it leaves a lot of room for writers block and can also lead to a long story being that you don't have a real goal for the character to reach in order to end the book.

The Main Character

1. Who is your main character? Hero? Anti-hero?

2. Why should we be interested in them?

3. What attracts you to your protagonist? Do you like them? Loathe them?

4. Why do you need to write about them?

5. Why should we be excited about them?

6. Why do you believe we will find your hero sympathetic? Empathetic?

7. What makes us curious about them? What is their “mystery”? What is their “magic”? Charisma? How do you show it?

8. What does the audience find in the main character’s story that is relevant to them? Why do you believe they will identify with them?

9. What is the cherished secret desire of your main character?

10. Do we laugh at your hero, feel amused by them, or do we admire them?

What Drives Your Main Character?

11. What do we hope for?

12. What are we afraid of?

13. What is the worst thing that could (and hopefully will) happen to your hero?

14. What is the most favorable, brightest moment that they will experience in the story?

15. What are they going to lose if they don’t find a way to overcome the adversities?

16. Why can’t your characters get what they crave?

17. How can you make the obstacles – inner or exterior – more insurmountable?

18. How can you make the threat, the danger, more excruciating, agonizing, humiliating? Who can do that? Why should they?

19. Why can’t your characters live at peace with their conscience, respect themselves if they don’t get what they so passionately want?

20. And: what is it that your characters want (consciously and tangibly)?

21. On the other hand: what do your characters need (on the emotional, subconscious level)?

The Plot

22. How can you make the temptations more irresistible and the stakes higher?

23. What can you do to eliminate the audience’s disbelief in the initial situation or collision (willing suspension of disbelief)?

24. Is there a deadline (time pressure) for the action to come to a resolution? Could there be? Who can create it?

25. When and how do your main characters realize that they are in trouble and that they must extricate themselves?

26. What are the alternatives you can imagine? How can the problem be solved?

27. But why is it impossible? Who or what makes the solution unattainable?

28. Can the predicament be evaded? What would happen if it were? Who makes the evasion impossible?

29. Can the complication be ridiculed, ignored, forgotten? Make sure that it cannot!