The speculative What If
Is your story’s premise a statement, or a question?
For writers who want to write a fiction story but may be having trouble getting started, try asking yourself a question: “what if?”
I don’t have statistics on how many authors regularly employ this technique, (guessing it’s more common in the speculative genre, which is an umbrella term for sci-fi, fantasy, and everything that combines the two, including alternate history) but in the analysis of many books, a reader can tease out a “what if” question that could well have been the author’s initial thought experiments.
“What if two young people fell in love, but their families were sworn enemies?”
“What if, instead of religious orders living in monasteries, philosophers, mathematicians, and scientists did, worshipping study and logic?”
“What if ancient stone megaliths like Stonehenge were actually portals through time, but only certain people could use them?”
“What if, instead of marrying a prince, a princess wanted to kill him?”
“What if a Southern Baptist preacher from the USA took his family to the Congo to be missionaries during the 1960s?”
(I’m sure you recognize at least a couple of the books that inspired, or were inspired by, these examples – feel free to place your guesses in the comments!)
Simple(ish) starting questions, but with lots of room to build stories around possible obstacles and consequences.
Let’s look at a hypothetical what if, and consider what factors follow in the generation of a story. Because I’m feeling fanciful, it’s dragons.
“What if there were dragons in the world?”
Cool. Who doesn’t love dragons? But that’s not enough for a story. What’s the rest of the world like? How do other species interact with these dragons?
For the sake of the exercise, let’s assume that the rest of the world in question is the Earth, familiar to the reader. The dragons are the only introduced factor.
What defines these dragons? Are they a natural animal, related to lizards, or dinosaurs? Are there different kinds, with different features or habitats?
Again, for the sake of keeping this post short, let’s assume that we’re looking at a fairly small group of one kind of dragon.
Are they magical creatures? Do they possess ancient wisdom? Do they have special abilities like being capable of flight, or turning invisible, or communicating with humans? What are their strengths and weaknesses? How long do they live, what do they fear, what can kill them?
Let’s say they can fly and breathe fire (tradtionally-ascribed features of dragons in Western cultures). In this story, they’re about the size of cats (in the body – neck, wings and tails make them seem larger). They’re intelligent but don’t have much “magical” talent, as such. They can understand human speech but can’t verbalize in people’s languages.
These dragons naturally live longer than humans but aren’t immortal – say 250 years average if nothing kills them.*
They fear people because people tend to make sudden and unexpected noises, but don’t mind thunder, because the lightning so thoughtfully warns them it’s coming.
How do they relate to their surroundings? Do they have a home base, like a cave or a nest? Are they solitary or familial? How big are their territories? What are their general demeanors?
This flight of dragons has about 30 individuals. The group has been slowly dwindling. They don’t know why, but eggs aren’t hatching the way they used to.
The question of dwindling population can be an excellent catalyst for a quest, determining causes and solutions/cures.
They have a lair in a cave in the mountains. They think of the surrounding twenty or so square miles as “their” territory, although it’s more their hunting range rather than a defensible area. They bask in the sun on rocks when they’re not engaged in other activities.
How do they relate to people? Are they sworn enemies, likely to kill each other on sight? Do they consider each other nuisances, encroaching on each other’s territories? Do they exchange information or goods? Do they work together?
When you add details to the what if, it sets up the atmosphere.
So,
“What if there are dragons in the world, who have been here longer than people, but who are shy of the noisy humans, and have retreated to the remaining quiet places, far away from civilization. They are adept at hiding, but love to fly in acrobatic dances and patterns when there’s no one around, blowing smoke rings then flying through them. They enjoy cooking and eating. Their favourites are medium rare meat, very hot tea and extra spicy curries. Unfortunately, their taste for spices has them creeping back to human settlements, scrounging in gardens and market stands at night.”
Aha! A conflicting desire: the dragons avoid people, but want their spices and teas. This is the beginnings of a story – how can the dragons continue to obtain their craved ingredients, without encountering people? What if they do meet someone? What happens if they come face to face?
Maybe they got tired of drying spices themselves (which can take quite a while, and they turn to ash if you try to speed things up with a bit of fire) and decided to try a market stall where the spices were already dried and processed as necessary. Maybe a travelling spice merchant, who was getting on in years and wished she could get out of the constant traversing of silk road navigation, happened to catch them stealing. Would she raise the alarm? Would she chase them away? Would she notice that they only picked the choicest samples, leaving anything that was the least bit stale?
What if she followed them back to their lair, and watched from a distance as they made the best food. Maybe her mouth watered at the aroma. Maybe it gave her an idea.
What if the merchant decided to strike a bargain with the dragons that she would provide them with the ingredients they asked for, in exchange for fueling and heating her idea for a remote roadside teahouse? She would run the teahouse, order the spices and tea from her fellow growers and merchants (she had all the contacts, of course), and deal with the people. The dragons in return would heat the building and cooking fires, and occasionally share their meals, and teach her the recipes. The dragons would not need to interact with the other people, and the merchant can finally settle in one location. Maybe she’ll plant her own garden for the herbs and vegetables that are best used fresh.
Do the other dragons approve of their bargain? What pitfalls or stumbling blocks could they encounter while working out the arrangement and setting up the teahouse?
Then what if, after working into a rhythm that worked for them all, and a number of successful years, the merchant passed away, leaving no heirs except the dragons? How could they get their spices now?
What if they had learned about her trading practices and bookkeeping through observation, and decided to try to continue the business on their own? Could they do it while still avoiding the traders’ and customers’ sight? Could they keep the secret of their existence from the intrusions of curiosity? What possible challenges and obstacles could they face? Would they need to bring themselves into the open? Are they still as shy as they’d always been? What if the nearby town had expanded and there was an increase in traffic on their road? Should they expand the teahouse into a bath house and B&B, or stay small?
What could possibly go wrong?
This last question is another classic device writers use when they’re stuck. Don’t know what happens next? Just look at what’s going on and ask “what could go wrong?” Then have that happen. The characters need to think their way out. It can keep unfolding too: here’s a problem – what’s the solution? Here, try this – oh, that sort of worked, but revealed a new problem …
Keep asking and answering questions long enough (throwing more than the occasional wrench in your characters’ plans), and you’ve got a story.
I’d love to hear what you come up with!
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go write a dragon story …
*with the oldest lasting 350 years, but he was really crotchety by then, probably because most of his teeth had fallen out so his only got mushy food and the other dragons had to rub lanolin on his wings or they’d get chapped. They tell stories and joke about how they had to keep a sheep all winter just to have the lanolin for him. It was sometimes easier to just roll him around on the sheep’s back since the dragons are small enough, and it’s difficult to harvest that much lanolin without shearing the sheep and boiling the wool.
Photo of some curling smoke on a black background, by Paul Wong, via Unsplash
