I ask a lot of questions. I always have. I like learning about new things, especially things I know nothing about.
Sometimes, asking lots of questions can be misleading.
Back in college, I acted in a few plays. During one rehearsal, all of the male cast members were waiting backstage as the female cast members staged a scene, when one of the other actors posed the question, “So, who’s gay?” Once we’d all given our answers, the conversation continued in that same vein. And I started asking a lot of questions. “When did you know you were gay? How did you tell people? When did you tell people? Who did you tell? How did you decide you were ready to tell people? What were their reactions?”
I am straight. But when you haven’t ever had a girlfriend, and you have been mistaken for being gay in the past, these questions may seem like preparation for your own coming out. (For the record, there’s nothing wrong with being mistaken for being gay—it just tends to hurt your chances with the female cast members a bit.)
A few years back, two friends of mine got engaged, the first in our group of friends to do so. At that point, I did have a girlfriend, and after that couple, we had been dating the longest. I asked the groom-to-be all sorts of questions. “Where did you get the ring? How did you know what she wanted? What kinds of rings did you look at? How did you propose? How long did you plan the proposal for?” With a knowing wink, he told me he’d be happy to elaborate on the process, the intimation being that I was planning a proposal of my own. I was not. I was just curious.
Earlier today, I downloaded a new e-book by Warren Ellis, a prolific author and futurist. The book, “Cunning Plans,” is a collection of talks that he has given. In the introduction, he writes:
“In a couple of months’ time, I’ll be on the road again to give talks. Berlin, Hay-on-Wye, and Dublin. I will, I think, be talking about new things. The pieces in this collection feel, right now, like a summation of a particular set of ideas and obsessions. Or, at least, like a surrounding of the space around them. I can see them better now. This is always the writer’s cunning plan – writing things down so that you can see them properly.”
Of all the questions there are to ask, “Why?” can often be the most intriguing—not least of all because it’s often the hardest to answer. “Why do I want to write?” for instance.
I’ve been struggling with that one quite a bit. I have no aspirations of changing the world. I don’t seek to write in order to right great wrongs, or illuminate great truths. I think there are others far more qualified for that. I also don’t have anything in my own life that I feel an overwhelming need to share with others—a set of unique circumstances or great personal challenges that deserve to be put out into the world for kindred spirits to glean hope or understanding from.
A few years ago, I wrote a comic book script. It was about a boy who lived in a world of super heroes, and wanted to be one himself. I had had the idea for the story floating around in my head for a couple of years before I wrote it down. I knew big moments that would happen in the character’s life, and many of the people he would come to meet. I created him. He lived in my head. I knew him.
I did not know that his dogged pursuit of becoming a super hero led him to grow up without friends. He was a kid who stayed in his room training, studying, and waiting for something more exciting. And I didn’t know that. I didn’t know it until I wrote his story down.
To date, that has been my favorite experience writing. I think it is amazingly cool to have a character tell you something that you didn’t know about them. And reading that quote from Warren Ellis got me thinking about that moment, and about asking questions. Writing is a series of asking and answering questions. “What do you want? How are you going to get it? What’s in your way? How are you going to overcome it? Are you going to overcome it?” Answering those questions is what turns an idea into a story. And just like in “I, Robot,” the true challenge often lies in asking the right questions.
I have ideas for a lot of different characters floating around in my head. Most times, it feels like too many. I haven’t been able to finish any one character’s story—I’ve barely been able to start most of them. So having a few dozen bouncing around and more joining in all the time seems like a bit much.
But each of those characters has a story. And I have a nagging suspicion that I don’t know those stories as well as I think I do. I don’t think I’ll be able to know them—“to see them properly”—until I write them down. Until I exhaust my litany of questions.
And I think, for right now, that’s a good enough answer for “Why do I write?” I may not have a calling to take up pen and pencil, or keyboard and word processor as the times may have it. But I am more than happy to ask questions of the people who live in my head.
Fingers crossed that they’ve got some interesting answers.