The "What If?" Trick: Turning Ordinary Ideas Into Wild Stories

Charlotte's Web — one of the most beloved children's stories ever written — began with a simple question that author E.B. White asked himself: what if a spider could write words in her web to save her friend's life? That one question became a story about friendship, sacrifice, and the power of words, published in 1952 and still read by millions of kids every year. Great stories almost always begin with a 'What If?' question. Learning to ask that question — and then follow it all the way through — is one of the most powerful skills a writer can develop.

By the end of this lesson you will be able to: 1. Use a 'What If?' question to generate an original story idea. 2. Build a story world with consistent rules that follow from your What If. 3. Create a character who wants something and faces a real obstacle. 4. Use showing (instead of telling) to bring your story to life.

A 'What If?' question takes something ordinary — a place, a person, a normal situation — and twists it. That twist is where the story lives. Start with something real and simple: - You walk to school every morning. - There is a forest near your house. - You have an older sibling who bosses you around. Now add 'What If?': - What if, one morning, you walked to school and everyone in town had forgotten your name? - What if the forest had a door in it that was there yesterday but gone today? - What if your older sibling woke up speaking a language no one could understand — except you? Suddenly there is a story! The ordinary world is still there — the school, the forest, the sibling — but something impossible or unexpected has broken in. That gap between the normal world and the strange new thing is where your story happens.

Once you choose your 'What If?', you need to decide: what are the rules of your story's world? If Charlotte the spider can write words in her web, then: - Other animals must be able to read and understand language (Wilbur the pig can understand Charlotte). - The humans who read Charlotte's web are amazed — so humans in this world cannot normally read spiders' webs (it is extraordinary). - Charlotte still acts like a spider in other ways — she eats flies, she spins silk. E.B. White was very careful. He did not say spiders could fly or breathe fire. He only changed ONE thing — the ability to write — and followed its rules carefully. This is called internal consistency: when you make up a rule for your story world, you have to follow it everywhere. If your character can turn invisible, but only when it is raining, that rule must stay true every single time in the story. Readers trust you to follow your own rules. When you break them without a reason, the story falls apart.

A 'What If?' gives you a world. But you still need a character who does something in that world. The simplest way to think about any character is this: your character wants something, and something is getting in the way. - Wilbur the pig in Charlotte's Web WANTS to live. The obstacle is that he is scheduled to be slaughtered. - Charlie Bucket WANTS to find a golden ticket. The obstacle is that his family is so poor he can only afford one chocolate bar a year. - Katniss in The Hunger Games WANTS to protect her younger sister. The obstacle is a system designed to kill her. Every time a character tries to get what they want and something stops them — that is your plot. The reader keeps reading to find out: will the character get what they want? How? For your story, ask yourself: after your 'What If?' twist happens, what does your main character want more than anything? And what is making it incredibly hard to get?

There are two ways to put information in a story. One is telling — just stating a fact. The other is showing — revealing the same information through action, detail, and sensation. **Telling:** 'She was nervous.' **Showing:** 'She could not stop tapping her foot. Her mouth tasted like metal. When the teacher called her name, her voice came out much smaller than she expected.' Both versions say the character is nervous. But the showing version makes you feel it. You have tasted that metallic feeling. You have heard your own voice shrink in a scary moment. The detail makes the story real. ShowING does not mean describing everything — it means choosing the specific detail that tells the truth. One well-chosen detail is better than ten vague adjectives. - Instead of 'The forest was scary' → 'The trees were so tall and close together that noon felt like dusk.' - Instead of 'He was angry' → 'He slammed the door so hard a picture fell off the wall.' When you revise your writing, look for every place you told a feeling — scared, happy, sad, confused — and challenge yourself: can I show it instead?