MASTERCLASS
More questions than answers
Helen M Walters looks at what questions can add to your story, and how they can help you understand your characters
Helen M Walters
This month’s story is full of questions of various sorts being posed. Some have answers, and some don’t. In F.A.Q.s by Allegra Goodman, Phoebe goes home to stay with her parents, Melanie and Dan, to recover from a broken relationship. The questions help to frame the story and demonstrate the relationships between the three main characters. As always, you’ll get most out of this masterclass if you read the story for yourself: https://writ.rs/faqs
The first question in the story is a fairly inconsequential one on the surface, but it sets the scene for some of the themes to come. Phoebe asks her parents where their new coffee maker came from. An innocent question. But what is important about it is that the coffeemaker is taking up the space where Phoebe had previously persuaded her parents to have a food composting bucket. Phoebe’s attempts to get her parents to be more environmentally aware will run through the story.
When Phoebe first arrives home her parents are so full of questions they are described as being ‘weighted down’ with them. They are desperate to know what happened between Phoebe and her boyfriend and what is going to happen next. Even the elliptical trainer that Melanie has installed in Phoebe’s bedroom in her absence has plenty of automated questions to ask.
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