Central Question
IN THIS LESSON
There are good questions that you want your audience to wonder
Audiences are motivated to follow your story when they want to know how it ends. More specifically, they want the know the answer to the central question that you pose. It typically boils down to a “Yes” or “No”. Your audience will be satisfied once you give them a definitive answer.
When crafting the beats and twists and turns of your story, a great way to keep your audience’s attention and curate the right experience is to change the predicted answer to your central question. It’s also a great tool for deciding what to keep in your story and what to toss out.
What is a Central Question?
Your central question is the big “How is this going to end?” of your story. It’s typically a question that could be answered with a “Yes” or a “No”. In a romance, the central question is typically “Will they or won’t they?”. Audiences will follow along until it’s officially declared that they lived happily ever after, or they go their separate ways. “Will the hero stop the bad guy?”, “Will the team win the big game?”, “Will the thieves pull of the big heist, and get away with it?”, “Will this hiker get out of the woods and survive?”.
Stories can pose more than one question. This is usually done by creating multiple plot lines. A hero could try to stop a bad guy and get the girl. Now there are two questions that need to be answered. Multiple characters can have their own plot lines with their own central questions.
Sometimes the question is a matter of “How?”. This type of question works well if your audience knows the “Yes” or “No” already, but are following along to find out How the “Yes” becomes a “Yes” or the “No” becomes a “No”. Audiences will already know that George W. Bush became president in 2004. They’ll follow a biography to find out how he became president.
Sometimes the question is a matter of “Who?”. “Who killed the butler?”, “Who will become King?”, “Who is going to win the race?”, “Who is she going to choose to marry?”. Audiences will follow along until a character is declared.
The key to a good central question is to ask something simple that will have a definite answer.
What to do With a Central Question
The central question is a great tool for manipulating the audience experience. The key is the predicted outcome. Every beat of your story is contributing to answering your central question. This means that every beat of your story has the opportunity to change the predicted answer to your central question. If your central question is a “Yes” or “No”, then each beat has the chance to make it seem like the answer is going to be a “Yes” or switch it up to a “No” or switch it back to a “Yes”. You can decide which outcome you want your audience to root for, then use that to influence their experience. If they’re rooting for a “Yes”, then anything that happens in your story that leans toward a “Yes” is going to get a positive reaction. Anything that points to a “No” will get a negative reaction.
The more you can get your audience invested in your central question, the more you can influence their experience. The more you jeopardize the the outcome that they are rooting for, the more interesting the story becomes. You don’t want to go too far, because people tune out if they don’t see any possibility of things turning around. A nice balance comes from variable chance of “Yes” or “No”.
Think about it this way, you’re watching your favorite team or athlete compete in your favorite sport. They’ve made it to the big final game of the season, or they’re at nationals, or the Olympics. Whomever wins is the champion. The central question is “Is my favorite team/athlete going to become a champion?”. Every time they score, you’re going to feel good. Every time the other team scores, or they lose points, or they DQ, you’re going to feel bad. You’re most interested when it’s a close competition. It could go either way, but you’re hoping for a specific outcome. As it gets closer to the end of the competition, everything seems more and more definitive. Now it feels like everything that happens is a big deal. You’re hooked, you’re emotional, and most of all you care about how this is going to end.
The same competition would be boring if it’s a blowout in either direction. Why bother watching if it’s a 100% guarantee that your favorite team/athlete is going to win or lose? If you cared about watching because you wanted to know if your favorite team/athlete is going to become a champion, then you’ve already gotten your answer.
You can think about this as your audience follows your story. Decide what you want the audience experience to feel like with every story beat, then ask yourself “How can you use your central question to guide the audience experience?”. How can you instill them with hope? How can you keep them on the edge of their seat? How can you break their hearts? How can you get them to cheer for your hero?
You get them invested in a question, and then control the predicted answer.
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