“Question everything” is good advice for life. But it’s also excellent advice for writing.
Questioning everything means carefully considering the methods and results of things you may do out of habit or because you haven’t taken the time to explore a more efficient or effective way to do them.
It’s easy to fall into habits—whether it’s how you brew a cup of coffee or how you describe a character’s facial expression—because habits are easy. They require less thought. Less planning. Less learning. Less time and effort.
We develop habits because 1) we’ve always done it that way, or 2) someone told us to do it that way once, or 3) we haven’t taken the time to look for a better solution, or 4) familiarity is comforting.
I’m not saying all habits are bad. Some are great, in fact, and make our lives flow more smoothly. I’ve finally found a workout habit I can actually adhere to, and my habit of reading nutrition labels prevents me from triggering an allergic reaction and keeps me and my family healthier. But when I realize I’ve prepared pork chops the same way the last four times, maybe it’s time to find a new recipe so our next pork-chop night isn’t as boring.
The same is true of writing. Some writing habits can be beneficial. Being in the habit of regularly backing up your files may prevent you from morphing into a screaming lunatic with murderous tendencies when a month’s worth of work disappears. Developing a writing-time-no-excuses habit can help you reach that delicious “The End” moment faster.
But other writing habits can work against us. That setting you’ve chosen for your next scene, for example—did you choose that setting with a specific reason in mind, or was it just the first place you thought of, as usual? By using a different setting, could you change the tone or atmosphere of the scene, add pressure to the scene’s conflict, or bring out an aspect of your character’s personality that they usually try to hide?
Question everything.
Question your POV character for each scene. What if you show this scene through your antagonist’s eyes instead of your protagonist’s eyes?
Question your protagonist’s goals, obstacles, and stakes. Can you raise the stakes of what your character stands to lose a little (or a lot) to make your story more gut-wrenchingly powerful?
Question your word choice. Instead of saying “He walked across the room,” could you make the scene more active and visceral by making him sidle, sneak, dash, saunter, or scramble?
Question your sentence rhythm. Have you fallen into a repetitive noun-verb pattern, like “He said___,” “She danced___,” “They carried___,” “The engine sputtered___,” and “The cat chased___”?
Question your subplots. Are they all necessary, and do they all play an important role in the main plot? Do they reflect your hero’s own journey, or do they just add complications that muddy the waters to the point where your main story goes off-track?
Question your side characters. Are there too many? Not enough? Do their goals and obstacles mirror or do they contradict your main character’s goals and obstacles, and which approach is better for this story?
Question your voice (third person vs first person?), your tense (past tense vs present tense?), and your use of detailed description (too much vs too little?). Just because you always write in third-person past tense doesn’t mean that’s the most effective choice for this particular story. Be willing to try a new approach.
Everything in your novel—from individual words to major themes, and from minor characters to major subplots—must serve a distinct purpose, or it risks slowing down your story and boring your readers.
Question everything.
Why? It’s not just to make this writing process even more laborious, even though it may seem like it.
It’s to take your story from adequate to stellar.
Every decision you make, when made intentionally and with a specific purpose in mind, will incrementally improve your story and your overall skill as a writer.
This matters because “good enough” books are okay. But “so fantastic I couldn’t put it down and I’ve told all my friends about it” books are better, right?
Question everything, and make your story and your writing shine like you know it can.
And if you have a great recipe for pork chops, let me know.
[Photo by Emily Morter on Unsplash]