In Spielberg’s movie version of H.G. Well’s novel, War of The Worlds, a bizarre lightning storm sends unsuspecting Jerseyites into the streets to investigate. That deep-down desire “to know” sends them reeling toward a danger that none of them could have suspected only moments before. We call it “curiosity”. That overwhelming need to know is present in all animals, but none more so than the human animal.
In a 1980’s Dirty Harry movie, a wounded bandit lay bleeding in a doorway when the avenging Inspector Callahan points his weapon at the man, growling, “Did he fire six shots or only five?” Well to tell you the truth in all this excitement I kinda lost track myself. But being this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world and would blow your head clean off, you’ve gotta ask yourself one question: ‘Do I feel lucky?’ Well, do ya, punk?” To which the bleeding man surprises the audience by replying at the risk of great personal peril, “I gots ta’ know.”
Curiosity is the one quality of mind that puts the “fight, flight, or freeze” mechanism on temporary hold. Until we know the full extent of our predicament, we are incapable of action. And it is the one mechanism that propels the characters and readers of any good story forward, even at the risk of said great personal peril. It is the normally passive husband woken from a sound sleep and told to go investigate a noise downstairs in the kitchen. He holds his breath, living a moment of true terror, until he flicks on the light and realizes that the cat has knocked over a garbage can to get at some leftover scraps. We collectively exhale with him and try to let go of the tension bubbling in our ears.
If the writer has done his or her job properly, they will have taken a blank sheet of paper and created that noise in the night. They will have awoken the sleeping characters and readers and forced them into moments of sheer bravery, to soldier on as it were, sent out by their ever-present curiosity and need to know. It is not the job of the writer to solve the problems or to massage the emotions they may be feeling.
A character and his companion reader will want that job for themselves.
In my novel, Late Risers, a thirty-something lawyer named Victoria Warren is curious about a father she never knew and why her mother so adamantly tried to hide his identity from her. It is that very curiosity that causes the whole fabric of her life to come apart. Could the stories of her father being a vampire possibly be true? Vampires don’t exist. Or do they? She (and you, the reader) will have to decide that for yourselves.
So, how good of a detective are you? Think you can solve it before Victoria Warren does?