Ask the right questions

Yes, it’s the end of February and I’m still obsessing over my New Year’s resolutions.

My second resolution as a writer is to “ask the right questions.” During the year of 2015 I concluded that better questions will make me into a better writer.

 

Here are some of “the right questions”

Remembering that the reader doesn’t know anything that I don’t tell him:

Where is this scene taking place?

What is my character feeling?

What is my character’s goal in this story?

Remembering that I want to keep things entertaining:

Am I loving all of my characters equally?

Is this interesting?

Dealing with personal demons:

How am I going to solve this puzzle?

 

A few wrong questions

Will I ever finish this manuscript?

Will I ever be good enough at writing?

 

I know there are many more questions I can ask and will ask at some point, but I find a small amount of basic questions helps my consistency and focus. What are other basic questions that you ask as you write? The ones that keep you on track? The ones, that if you had a memory like a spaghetti strainer and only a 3×5 card for notes, that you’d commit to writing?