There are currently only two people lucky enough to hear about my writing. One is work friend, the other is my husband. The work friend listens as I ramble on about my plans for one character or another. My husband on the other hand, while happy I am making progress, has questions I cannot answer.
He does not want to figure it out along the way. He wants all the answers now. When I say I have discovered only the males pass down the trait in the family, he asks, “Why does the family have this power? Where did it come from? Doesn’t that one woman have power?” Kudos to him for remembering “that one woman”, but she does not have power per se. I do not know where the family power comes from, and I do not know why the family has this power. I only recently learned how two of the major characters met!
Maybe the writing process is different for others, but my characters only let me know things in bits and pieces. The bits usually appear while I am talking out loud. I have a vague understanding of what is going to happen, but I, too, have so many questions! This story is coming at me piecemeal. Fits and starts. He says if he wrote a story, he would have to outline it all and know all the answers. He is a planner in every aspect of his life. I hardly know what I am going to be doing in 10 minutes much less the full view of this three-book family saga. But, when a new piece of the whole comes to light, I feel like it has been there in front of me the whole time.
I appreciate both people for different reasons. The work friend placates my need to feel like I am heading in the right direction. Her responses are fun, and sometimes she can guess a piece I have not mentioned, yet. My husband keeps me on my toes. He will never be able to hear the story ideas without asking questions. If I can miraculously answer those questions, he has more. Always. I get frustrated with the questions for which I have no answers, but dammit, they are good questions. He makes me think or consider new avenues.
Well, it is time to work on more answers. Next time, I hope to have more answers and some form of a timeline figured out. Things are getting messy!
Wendy Crafton Writes 
Ah the questions. They're so tricky, but they're so important. For me, the story fills out because of the questions I'm able to answer. But the questions we don't answer are important, too. Our characters get to have some privacy, and our readers get to fill in those empty spaces with their own ideas.
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I've learned to enjoy the questions. As you said in your comment, the answers fill in along the way. I like the thought of my character having some privacy and not revealing everything to me. It's on a need to know basis, and, apparently, I don't need to know! ❤
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