I Have Some Questions for You
a catechism, with thanks to Rebecca Makkai and the Ithaca chapter of Ulysses
Why do we ask questions in narrative?
A lot of reasons — and not always simply to get to the answers.
Are questions always a function of curiosity?
Not necessarily. Does that 911 lady who says "What's the nature of your emergency?" sit around wondering what sort of shit show just befell you and everyone else on her queue? Unlikely. She might dread every call, or maybe she's a creepy voyeur, or just trying to do some good in the world, or earn a living. Who knows?
But curiosity, that's a good thing — right?
Sure. Except for the poor cat in the adage... Not to mention the prurient curiosity that bleeds over into nosiness, snooping, gossip. And what's up with how I usually can't wait to find out how books end, so I always read the last chapter ahead? Is that actually some sort of literary crime?
What are some other reasons we ask questions?
Among the best of all questions, in my opinion, are those that arise from the Socratic method, where teachers' inquiries lead learners to arrive at ideas through reason, not rote. Rhetorical questions do something similar, except that a yucky manipulation is taking place: There is an implied, predetermined correct answer to a rhetorical question, and yet the answerer (or reader) is also asked to pretend the answer is their own authentic response. With catechisms, the idea is to drill information, inculcating specific beliefs in a group of respondents, fixing and norming the group's received idea of the Truth. I really don't approve of that sort of brainwashing, but hey, it gave rise to James Joyce's truly hilarious send up of the Catholic Catechism in the Ithaca chapter of Ulysses, so that's worth something, right? There are surely more kinds of questions than anyone could enumerate, some banal, some profound, running the gamut from non-questions like "How are you?" or "What's up?" (to which no one actually wants an answer), to police interrogations (was that confession coerced?), to scripts read out by officials of every stripe to elicit binding oaths and affirmations, to toddlers' wonderments about the natural world (and every damn else thing besides), to, well —how could one omit it? — "To be, or not to be." (Did you ever notice the omission of an actual question mark in that line?)
Why are questions so powerful in storytelling?
(Did that question just imply something you weren't asked whether you agreed with, viz., that questions are powerful in storytelling? Yep, sorry. Guilty. Manipulative.) Questions are powerful (and here's where I forge ahead with my notion, despite having just admitted I was being manipulative) because by engaging readers directly, they bring about greater reader agency and connection to the story. They also have a different energy than declarative statements and thus draw a different kind of attention, and sometimes just the variation in pacing and intonation can be bracing. Ideally, but not always (see above complaints about rhetorical question and catechism), questions impart an open-endedness to the ideas they circle around. They can foment change, which is critical in storytelling, of course, but also in society. Could questions be a way to leap from the minute to the majectic, the personal to the political? When a character questions their reality, might a reader then question their own?
Do you — yes, I'm talking to you, now, directly, as a writer — ask enough questions of various different sorts in your work?
I don’t know, do you? Go take a look. Try searching your document for the question mark, and see how often it occurs!
By the way, would you mind if I asked you why are you writing what you're you're writing?
This is a good one because the answer, hopefully, will evolve over time, so you can ask it again and again.
Any questions?