{"id":7297,"date":"2026-06-09T13:58:45","date_gmt":"2026-06-09T12:58:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/meerkatmusings.co.uk\/?p=7297"},"modified":"2026-06-09T17:40:29","modified_gmt":"2026-06-09T16:40:29","slug":"meerkat-books-the-what-if-exercise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/meerkatmusings.co.uk\/?p=7297","title":{"rendered":"Meerkat Books: The What If Exercise"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I recently bought a ‘sort of’ book, called Ready, Set, Novel!<\/em> It’s half book, half guide. This guide, put together by Lindsey Grant, has a number of useful exercises for building a book, and I am enjoying making use of it, but one particular element has particularly stuck with me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ‘What if’ exercise is a great way for building up a story from the earliest point, through to its conclusion. It makes you think about each element, and breaks it down into bite-sized pieces to build upon later. I am not prone to offering up many pearls of writing wisdom, but this is one I will happily suggest to any aspiring writer, regardless of what you write.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To offer an example, think of an idea, any idea. ‘What if a 12th Century peasant is transported to the 21st Century?’ How might you build on that? ‘What if he is initially overwhelmed by everything?’ How might he seek solace? ‘What if the only source of familiarity is the Church?’ ‘What if the local pastor provides him with counsel, and helps him to find somewhere to stay?’ ‘What if the time traveller slowly learns how to read and write, and learns of the history he missed?’<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That’s but one quick example of how the ‘what if’ question can spin out in a deeper story, all from one idea. There are so many ways to use this mechanism to build out a concept. ‘What if young Billy chooses a career in rugby instead of football? ‘What if he gets seriously hurt in a game, and ends up disabled?’ ‘What if Billy fights hard to recover?’ ‘What if he gets into coaching rugby?’ ‘What if he goes on to become a manager in rugby, and wins the world cup for his country?’<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I haven’t finished with the book, so I can’t yet offer other thoughts on how it may help me develop a story, but this is one of the most compelling exercises I can suggest. It may not work for you, which is fine, but if it does help, then it may be worth repeating it for individual chapters, or to flesh out characters. There isn’t really a limit to how you can use this concept.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Back to Meerkat Books<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I recently bought a ‘sort of’ book, called Ready, Set, Novel! It’s half book, half guide. This guide, put together by Lindsey Grant, has a number of useful exercises for building a book, and...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":817,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_pvb_checkbox_block_on_post":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7297","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-author-stuff"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/meerkatmusings.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/image-91.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/meerkatmusings.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7297","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/meerkatmusings.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/meerkatmusings.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meerkatmusings.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meerkatmusings.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7297"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/meerkatmusings.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7297\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7304,"href":"https:\/\/meerkatmusings.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7297\/revisions\/7304"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meerkatmusings.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/817"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/meerkatmusings.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meerkatmusings.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meerkatmusings.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}