The Two Most Powerful Words: What If

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So often we writers get stuck in our stories. We get married to some of the things we set up. It HAS to be a hot air balloon get-away because that's what I envisioned when I first came up with the story. This couple HAS to have known each other since high school. The story is set in Philadelphia. It just is. And then, when we get frustrated, because something isn't working, it's like bashing our heads against a concrete wall. We get stuck.

What we need to do is get out two sticks of dynamite, one labeled "what" and the other labeled "if". Ignite those two words and blow your story UP. What IF the couple knew each other since high school and then learned they were actually siblings separated at birth? No, that's weird. Okay, what IF they found out they'd been seeing the same therapist? Eh. What IF one of them was having an affair with the therapist? No, no, what if they only met on page negative ten and hadn't known each other for years? What if this story isn't set in Philadelphia but in Miami? What if it's a jet ski get-away, not a hot air balloon get-away? What if this story is set in 1952 not the present? What if this whole script is actually a western? A sci-fi story? A horror story?

Nothing is more freeing than blowing your story out and asking some "what if" questions of it. Sometimes this is very hard to do and we need help. If you know other writers, throw a "what if" brainstorming session for your story. Invite a friend over, have some beer and pretzels, open your mind and just start what-iffing.

I had a friend over last night and we discussed this particular topic. I made up a horrible logline, not unlike loglines I see with some regularity: a bunch of college buddies get drunk one night and overturn a car. Really - I see scripts in which that's pretty much the story. And it's usually based on a true story that to the person involved, was pretty hilarious at the time. There's not much story there, as you can see. But, my friend said, what IF the car that they overturned belonged to the president of the university they are attending? What if the university president's daughter is dating one of the guys? What if this is law school and these buddies were about to graduate? What if the car itself as a 1955 Silver Cloud Rolls Royce? That had a bag of money in the trunk? Is this a comedy or a thriller? It could go either direction at this point. But now we have taken a "dude, it was so funny that time me and my friends flipped some dude's car when we were in college" script and begun to explore some interesting possibilities to write a unique story. Or at least some kind of story rather than a script which is a year in the life of some dude when he went to college. I pale when I think how often I see scripts about like that. For real.

Almost any story can be what-iffed to a better place. But you have to be willing to go to the ridiculous before you find what works. What if my main character is a talking ape? Okay, ha ha, very funny. But for real, what if my main character took a DNA test and inexplicably high amounts of Neanderthal genes were found? Whoa. Maybe that works, maybe that's insane. But you have to be willing to play with the details because it is those details that can both lock us up and free us through our willingness to change them. Just because, for four drafts now, this couple knew each other since high school doesn't mean that in this draft they have not. What does that open up in this story? Maybe everything. Maybe nothing.

Be willing to blow your story out with some what if's. A different era, genre, or simply a significant detail can take what was not really working and elevate it to a whole new level. I have heard tell of writers working on comedies who suddenly discovered they were actually writing a thriller. And suddenly, everything came together and was brought to a whole new - and totally different level.

Here is a hilarious video which illustrates my point hilariously:

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