Deep Truth, Burning Question: The Beating Heart of Your Novel

I remember, decades ago, one of the biggest crazes as a writer was finding the perfect character development questionnaire. I remember one that I came across on the internet had over 150 questions. If you could answer those — if you know what tattoos or scars your character had or their favorite type of music — you were ready to write your novel.

I’m not about to tell you that details aren’t important. Specificity is, after all, a writer’s friend.

(We had a joke in my MFA program that you could always tell a writer from anyone who wasn’t because they wouldn’t just say an oak tree was an oak tree, but they’d tell you what kind of oak. I was always partial to the sessile oak myself.)

But, what I do want to emphasize to you is that there’s a better place to start, and while it won’t give you everything you need to know in order to write your novel, it will give you the most important thing.

The deep truth that creates a burning question your story must answer is the beating heart of your entire novel.

Why? Because every decision your protagonist makes (even to get that tattoo or to participate in something that would earn them that scar) is going to come back to this deep truth, this question your story is trying to answer.

And, since every scene needs to be driven by either a choice or a change (or it belongs in exposition, not in-scene), that deep truth is going to come up a lot.

Maybe not always consciously. Many times, a protagonist doesn’t know the deep truth driving them. They don’t know the question they’re trying to answer (though they may think they do, which is always fun).

However, because every choice or change integral to the main plot's narrative drive touches on this deep truth, it pumps the lifeblood through your story. They’re what ensures your story matters to your readers.

And that deep truth? That question? Often times it’s within you, the writer. Even more often, it’s been in the back of your mind, maybe even driving your choices and changes.

This isn’t a call to write characters who qualify as Mary Sues. Not at all. But I do think it’s where the famed and now cliché advice “write what you know” really comes from.

It’s the truth that won’t let you go. It’s the question that takes center stage when you’re about to fall asleep, once you've hopefully driven all other thoughts from your mind. It’s what comes through when you try to think of nothing, because it is the beating heart of you.

And, before anyone comes at me suggesting this means each writer has only one story to tell, I am walking proof this isn’t true.

As a writer, my own beating heart of my stories surrounds authenticity of identity and belonging, and the transformations therein. This has been the truth that won't let me go and it comes up in story after story I write… and I’ve written some wildly different stories, published or not.

As a coach, it’s also the element I care most about drawing out from my writers, because I know it’s the beating heart of the story. When you know your deep truth and the question that it longs to ask, you:

• don’t have to worry about creating narrative drive (the element of story that keeps your ideal reader turning the pages)
• won’t get as stuck in the muddy middle (because your story won’t lie dead on the page since its beating heart thumps in concert with your own)
• will know how your story needs to end (because it will be the answer to the question your deep truth asks at the beginning of that story)

When a story rings true, it becomes unforgettable. When a story rings true, it becomes possible to craft a narrative around it that is unputdownable. Stories need lifeblood, and there is nothing more vital than the deepest truths we experience as human beings (even if your characters are not human, your ideal reader is).

If you’re ready to dive deep into your truth and find the question that will not only sustain but liven your story, then I want to talk to you.