For Authors: What If?

For Authors

This week: What If?

Edited by: Vivian

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One of the W.Com members wrote something in her off-site blog that triggered something I've believed for years. She mentioned examining material, such as newspaper articles, and then asking, "What if." Those two words open up a new world of ideas.

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What If?

Several writers can observe or read or experience the same thing yet write completely different story. Each applies the question "What if" to make ideas, experiences, and observations their stories.

I heard a story a few weeks ago that left a desire to use it in my writing. Oh, not as told to me, but by applying "what if" to it to make it a different story.

The story contained two people, a man and a woman. One was intelligent but disabled, physically challenged. The other was intelligent, ambitious, and whole physically. What if the ambitious, whole-bodied person was a woman? Let's say it is. The physically challenged person is a man who has been severely injured.

The woman and man grew up together as friends from the time they were children. They both were one among several children in their families, poor families that scrambled to keep any kind of food on the tables and roofs over the heads of the people inside the walls of the houses. The couple felt they belonged together from the time they were in their early teens.

A battlefield accident left the man maimed, but the woman, now his wife, still saw the man she had always loved. However, now he couldn't financially provide for their family. He did well to work part time at low paying positions. Fear of not being able to feed their children or to keep the family in a home swamped both husband and wife. They had that urgent need to provide for their family.

Let's name the couple Roger and Dee Wright, just for identification purposes.

The Wrights decide that Dee will return to school, get a degree, and provide financial support while Roger takes care of the children and home.

Dee succeeds beyond their wildest dreams. She is the top in her field. She travels and is entertained across the world. Roger refuses to accompany her because of his appearance, no matter how much she encourages him.

The ingredients are in place to produce a tragedy or a great love story. Now we have to add the what if to see what happens.

What if Dee finds another man, one who wants to be a complete part of her life? Would that make a successful story?

What if Dee, now that she has enough income to last her family, puts her career behind her and rejoins her family full time.

What if Roger decides his wife deserves more than he is providing her and decides to join her when she wants him and hold his head up high. He has nothing of which to be ashamed. Perhaps he becomes a writer, incorporating all he has experienced and learned.

Which would make the better story: Dee leaving her husband for the other man, or Roger deciding to join his wife publicly as well as privately?

I know how I would write the story. What if I wrote a human, touching, true love story that shows the couple building a stronger union? Yes, that's the "what if" I see.

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Words from our readers

baronesslucy

Find this subject very interesting. When I was a child I remember hearing about a man who went to the grocery store and was never seen again. I also heard his family got some very strange phone calls and mail relating to his disappearance. The mail and phone calls originated from Buglaria and other parts of Eastern Europe. Neither this man nor his family were of Eastern European ancestry. This was never in the local newspaper where I lived and no one else seems to remember this. A couple of people think I imagined this but I don't think so. What would readers think happened to this guy. This would be a great story.

BIG BAD WOLF Feeling Thankful

When you use a spy, put them in a position the villain won't look twice at. Now, I best get back to working undercover as a janitor.

Thanks for the comments concerning my article about espionage in writing. I think I'll begin a series concerning building the foundation of writing for the next issue.

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