Tom French taught me the strategy of building your work around a key
question that the story will answer for the reader. (In the book,
this is
Tool 31.) He calls that question "the engine" because of
its power to pull the reader from the beginning right through to the
end.
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Fans of
Harry Potter will attest -- as we wait for the seventh
and final book from
J.K. Rowling -- that we have stored up a list of
questions that demand answers from the author. And we won't be
satisfied until we reach the final word of the final chapter of the
final book (which, by the way,
Rowling has revealed is "scar"): Who will live and who will die? Is the
headmaster Dumbledore
really
dead? Is
Professor Snape good or evil? Will
Ron and
Hermione ever hook up? What will happen to
Hogwarts, the school
for magic?
We feel the power of the story engine as we enjoy -- at times, endure --
many expressions of popular culture: Will the
bluesy guy with the
gray hair become the next
American Idol? Will the
Cubs ever
win
the
World Series? Will baseball slugger
Barry Bonds become the
all-time home run leader, or will
revelations about steroid use destroy
him? Will
Michael Jackson ever ... well, you fill in the blank.
Sonia Nazario of the
Los Angeles Times won a
Pulitzer prize for "
Enrique's Journey: The Story of a Boy's Dangerous Odyssey to
Reunite with his Mother." With inspirational physical and moral
courage, Nazario retraces the perilous journey of a teenage boy
traveling from Honduras through Mexico to the United States to find his
mother. The book version could not come at a better time as
America struggles to reassert its identity and find its cultural soul
in its great debates over immigration, sovereignty and the safety of its borders.
As I began reading Nazario's series (now in
book form), I was struck by the transparency of her story
engine. Here's the final paragraph of her prologue:
Children who set out on this journey usually don't make it. They
end up back in Central America, defeated. Enrique was determined
to be with his mother again. Would he make it?
A popular slogan reminds us that it's about the journey, not the
destination. With a narrative, that slogan rings false. It's
about the journey and the destination, the payoff, the solution to the
mystery, the answer to the question.
"Would he make it?"
That engine will drive me for 287 pages to find out.
