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Sunday 23rd August 2026
No matter how literary your novel is, do not skip these questions. In a way, they are everything...
What is the exigency? The central thread? What is the reader reading for? What’s pulling them through? What question do they want answered? What’s their tether? Where’s the tension, the urgency? What’s the main dramatic point, the through-line? What are the physical stakes set up from the beginning?
This is the same question asked in different ways. Make sure the answer is something clear and concrete. Make it tangible. Make it external, even when it’s motivated by something internal.
Why external? Aren’t the most resonant stories based on internal emotions?
Yes, but we need something physical to attach those emotions to, so that we can see it. The story will culminate in an event, an action, a grand gesture, that will show the internal change has been made. Something that never would have happened when the story began. Everything leads to this moment.
Make it a yes/no. Either it will happen, or it won’t.
This is why the reader keeps reading. The tension, wanting to find out. But more than this, they want to experience the emotional journey that leads there.
That’s what the above questions are for.