Writing Mistakes Writers Make: Trying to Answer Every Question
Everyone makes mistakes—even writers—but that’s OK because each mistake is a great learning opportunity. The Writer’s Digest team has witnessed many mistakes over the years, so we started this series to help identify them early in the process. Note: The mistakes in this series aren’t focused on grammar rules, though we offer help in that area as well.
Rather, we’re looking at bigger-picture mistakes and mishaps, including the error of using too much exposition, neglecting research, or researching too much. This week’s writing mistake writers make is trying to answer every question.
Writing Mistakes Writers Make: Trying to Answer Every Question
One of my favorite experiences in my book club is when we are discussing a book that has no clear resolution, where we ask each other “What do you think happened?” or “What do you think the ending meant?” Reading together encourages conversation and provokes contradictions.
So, why do writers feel the need for every question they pose, either explicitly or implicitly, to have one correct answer? Does A plus B have to equal C? I argue that A plus B could equal C but doesn’t have to. Let me try and explain.
There are a lot of different formulas, outlines, and structures that exist to help us through our drafts, be it Save the Cat or the three-act structure or what have you. These are necessary and helpful for the writing process, but what can happen in following them too closely is that we start to think there is a right way to write our stories and a wrong way. A casualty of that thought spiral is the idea of tying up all loose ends or the reader won’t be satisfied. But intentional loose ends can be magical for readers and can encourage them to think about your story well after they’ve turned the final page.
In a world of interconnected stories with multiple multiverses, where everything must mean something, the pressure is on for writers to connect every dot, to answer every question, to leave no stone unturned. I think this is wrong and can lead to a less imaginative reading experience. Writing is an art form, not a math equation, and if you want to introduce something in your story that has no clear answer or meaning or resolution, it’s likely the very element that will set your story apart.
Here’s a non-book example that comes to mind for me.
MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD. Content warning: Suicide.
At the start of the movie The Others, Nicole Kidman’s character is giving a tour to the new group of servants after the previous ones vanished in the middle of the night. During the tour, she tells them that the curtains must remain closed at all times, as her children have a sun allergy, and that the piano is not allowed to be played because it sets off her migraines. Not to mention, the home seems to be haunted by ghosts who just won’t leave.
Throughout the movie, there is an air of mystery about the servants, that they know more than they’ve let on. They intentionally remove the curtains, exposing the children to a fatal allergic reaction, and Nicole Kidman’s character often succumbs to her migraines, which cannot helped by her medication.
The ending of the movie reveals that, while they’ve thought the house is haunted, it is Nicole Kidman and her children who were dead the whole time. Slowly, she begins to remember what happened, how in her madness she smothered her two children and then shot herself in the head, only to “wake” to the sound of her children playing in their room, thinking it had all just been a bad dream.
Some aspects of this story are answered. The children, for example, are no longer allergic to the sun in death, and the servants (who are also dead) were trying to lead Nicole Kidman to that answer on her own.
But what about her migraines? Are they due to the sounds of the piano, or are they the result of her shooting herself in the forehead? Every possible answer to this is “Yes!”, “No way”, “Definitely”, “Maybe”, and “I don’t know,” and all of those answers are correct.
When I first saw The Others years ago, her migraines were a major debate my friends and I had well after the credits ended. This is the joy of leaving behind details that offer an opportunity to live more closely within the story itself, to have a say in what happens or why something happens, without our authorial hand telling them “That’s wrong.” Because where’s the fun in that? Something can be true for us, the writers, that doesn’t have to be true for them, the readers.
But don’t mistake an open-ended ending for a cliffhanger—the latter almost certainly leading to a sequel of some sort. Think of the ending of Catching Fire, the middle book in the Hunger Games trilogy, vs. the ending of Gone Girl. One leaves you waiting for answers, the other leaves you asking questions, and both are satisfying in their own right. (This is another topic completely, one that I will explore in a future Writing Mistakes post.)
We forget that there is an inherent mystery in the reading experience. Part of the fun of reading is the conversation it can produce, and if we’re immovable in the meaning of what we’re writing, we’ve taken that experience from our readers. Answering every question is not our job as writers; our job is just to make sure we’re asking them. Our readers will answer them for themselves.
With a growing catalog of instructional writing videos available instantly, we have writing instruction on everything from improving your craft to getting published and finding an audience. New videos are added every month!