Why Ask Why? Because Your Readers Will

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Making readers wonder is a good thing—unless they have no clue why your characters are acting as they do, or your world makes no sense.

It’s easy to think plotting is all about the what—after all, the plot is what happens to your characters. But while the what is important to how the story unfolds, the why is what’s driving that story to unfold in the first place. What without why is just action with any motivation.

A strong plot will combine both the what and the why.

A weak novel often has characters who are acting only because plot says they need to—there’s no plausible reason for them to behave that way. And worse, none of their actions have consequences that force them to act again so the whole GMC plot cycle can continue. Your scenes get stuck and you aren’t sure why, they feel flat and it’s hard not to skim, and you probably have a nagging feeling the scene isn’t doing enough. You know what happens, but not why.
 
Try looking at the why.

Why Is the Character Doing This?

It’s vital to ask your protagonist “why are you doing this?” in every scene for every action they take. This is what’s motivating them and causing the plot to happen. Look for answers that are:

• Personal or unique to that character
• Not a detached plot reason
• Plausible for the problem they’re facing
• The most logical and easiest step for them to take

That last one is where a lot of folks stumble. Human nature means we typically take the path of least resistance, so if walking in the door and sneaking past the receptionist will get us what we want, we’re not going to scale the outside of the building and cut the windows while dangling ten stories up.

The trick is to match your character’s motivations (the why) to situations where the easiest path is the path you want your protagonist to tale for story reasons, even if that "easiest" path is quite hard. It's just easier than the other options available to them.

Some whys (and a few whats) to consider:

• What is the protagonist trying to do?
• Why are they trying to do it?
• What are the easiest and most obvious ways to accomplish this goal?
• Why does the protagonist pick the one they do?
• What can go wrong?
• Why does it matter?

The plot will come from the whats. The story will come from the whys. What the protagonist is doing and why they’re doing it.

(Here’s more with Two Questions to Ask for Stronger Character Goals and Motivations)

Why Are Things Like This?

This is the harder aspect of why. We often need our settings to reflect something for the plot, but we haven’t spent a lot of time thinking about why that thing is the way it is. This might be a bit of history or world building, or a situation that needs to happen in the novel.

The sci-fi spoof Galaxy Quest makes fun of this when two of the protagonists find a dangerous Rube Goldberg-esque device they have to get through to reach a critical spot on the ship. After nearly dying to get through it, Sigourney Weaver’s character complains about how that episode was badly written and that thing never should have been there in the first place.

And she's right.

Like many problematic scenes, there was no reason why that chomper thing was there other to cause random trouble for the characters. It served zero purpose in the ship.

No matter how exciting the scene may be all on its lonesome, random trouble is often boring. Throw a bunch of random scenes together, and it’s a major yawnfest.

This frequently happens when we have a cool idea and world developing, but we don’t take the extra time to figure out why things work as they do. The reason for those “cool things” to be in the world or story beyond that one scene.

In some cases, the characters don’t even interact with the world other than basic pre-designed plot points, so the world never feels real. And in really bad cases, those worlds don’t make sense, because nothing was designed to work in that world, only in that scene.

Look at your world and ask:

• Why is this society/city/people like this?
• Why do they believe/think/feel as they do?
• Why is this a problem for the characters?
• Why do they think differently/the same?
• Why would someone do/make/create this?

Asking one why typically leads to another, so don’t be afraid to dig down a few layers and make sure the situation works for more than one scene or plot point. You don’t need to know the answers six layers deep to every little why, but for the big questions, your world will feel more solid if you know the why for a few questions. For example:

In a scene for one of my old WIPs, I needed my protagonist to use hallways that weren’t used anymore. It was important to the plot that she be able to get around without being seen, and I didn’t want to use the “secret passages in the palace” device. My why layers looked like this:

Why is the protagonist using these halls?
Answer: Because they’re not used anymore and she can get around without being seen.

Why are the halls unused?
Answer: Because they were once used for servants to get around without using the main hall where the nobles could see them. It’s a caste society, and seeing the lower caste was once undesirable, but isn’t anymore. Using these halls now takes longer than using the main halls, so no one uses them anymore.

Why did this change?
Answer: Because social customs changed and the society is more progressive now. They'd rather have quick service than not see servants.

This was as far as I needed to go with this chain of whys, because that answer made sense to the world and was a plausible reason for unused hallways to exist. But I could go one more layer and figure out why society changed and what happened to trigger that change if I needed to—such as, if my critique partners or beta readers asked that question, or it became relevant to the story.

(Here’s more with The Difference Between Setting and World Building)

Character goals and motivations create the plot and drive the story, and the better we understand those, the better our novels will be. 

If readers can think, “Yeah, but what if they just did X” and your plot falls apart, you’ll lose credibility as an author and they’ll likely toss the book aside. But if all the whys are plausible, and readers feel grounded in a real world where things make sense, then you’ll be able to craft a strong story readers can lose themselves in.

Having a clever idea is a great start to a plot, but if there are too many holes, the plot will likely end up feeling contrived.

EXERCISE FOR YOU: Take five minutes and ask “why” for the key elements of your plot and characters. Make sure they hold up to questioning and aren’t built on a shaky foundation.

How deep do you go when creating your world and plot?

*Originally published April 2011. Last updated August 2021.

Find out more about characters, internalization, and point of view in my book, Fixing Your Character & Point-of-View Problems.

Go step-by-step through revising character and character-related issues, such as two-dimensional characters, inconsistent points of view, too-much backstory, stale dialogue, didactic internalization, and lack of voice. Learn how to analyze your draft, spot any problems or weak areas, and fix those problems.

With clear and easy-to-understand examples, Fixing Your Character & Point-of-View Problems offers five self-guided workshops that target the common issues that make readers stop reading. It will help you:

• Flesh out weak characters and build strong character arcs
• Find the right amount of backstory to enhance, not bog down, your story
• Determine the best point(s) of view and how to use them to your advantage
• Eliminate empty dialogue and rambling internalization
• Develop character voices and craft unique, individual characters 

Fixing Your Character & Point-of-View Problems starts every workshop with an analysis to pinpoint problem areas and offers multiple revision options in each area. You choose the options that best fit your writing process. It's an easy-to-follow guide to crafting compelling characters, solid points of view, and strong character voices readers will love.

Available in paperback and ebook formats.

Janice Hardy is the award-winning author of the teen fantasy trilogy The Healing Wars, including The Shifter, Blue Fire, and Darkfall from Balzer+Bray/Harper Collins. The Shifter, was chosen for the 2014 list of "Ten Books All Young Georgians Should Read" from the Georgia Center for the Book.

She also writes the Grace Harper urban fantasy series for adults under the name, J.T. Hardy.

When she's not writing novels, she's teaching other writers how to improve their craft. She's the founder of Fiction University and has written multiple books on writing.

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