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your book a winner. Dorothy gets home (plot MDQ) but at the same time she realizes she’s always been home; that here, with Aunty Em, is where her heart truly lives (spiritual MDQ). Can’t you hear Judy Garland say, “Oh, Aunty Em—there’s no place like home!” Talk about a clear visible plot goal, with the spiritual MDQ answered metaphorically!
    So before you even start writing (or if you are partway through your novel), write down your two MDQs—the plot question and the spiritual question you need to raise in the first scenes that will be answered in one of the last scenes in your book. This is what should shape and give impetus to your entire novel—these questions. Your plot arc and character arcs will all begin and end based on these questions. They seem simple, but the reader needs to know what they are.
    This doesn’t mean you state them blatantly (although in my novel Conundrum , I decided to actually have my main character, Lisa, in first person, ask the MDQ in her head—literally and exactly word for word. That worked for my book, and it sure left no confusion on the reader’s part as to what the novel was about and what Lisa’s plot and spiritual questions were).
    I’ve given you a lot of important, big things to think about, and I hope you will see how mind-blowing the MDQ topic is!
     
     
Think about . . . the MDQ for a while to get the hang of setting up your novel at the start with these important elements. It will make writing your book that much easier. The MDQs become a beacon of light that guides your protagonist on her long, dark journey to the end of the story and into the heart of your story.
     
     
     

Chapter 6: First Thoughts for Your First Paragraphs
     
    “Beginnings are always messy.”
    ~author James Galsworthy
     
    I’ve been going over all the essential elements you need in your first scene, all of which should to show their heads on the first page or two. I’ve talked about eliminating backstory and excessive explanation and setting up your protagonist’s visible plot goals and the MDQs to this point. In this chapter we’ll look at a few other essential first-scene elements needed to shore up the structure of your novel and smooth the way to the heart of your story.
    If you can succeed at this first scene, you are well on your way to writing a terrific novel. Conversely, if you fail to include all the major elements you need right away, you will lose your reader, and that equates to a failed attempt at hooking and keeping your reader turning page after page.
     
    The #1 Objective for Your Novel
     
    So . . . what is the #1 objective in writing your novel? (Drum roll . . .) To elicit emotion. Not any one specific emotion, but some emotion. And you should have an idea of what kind of emotion you’d like to incite in your reader. But that’s your aim—to move your reader.
    Okay, I know I’m veering off course here, but one of my favorite books of all time is Walter Moers’s The City of Dreaming Books . If you haven’t heard of this German author who draws crazy cartoons throughout and has the most wacky, warped imagination on earth, you need to discover him. In this novel, Optimus Yarnspinner, a young writer (who is more like a goofy dragon), inherits from his beloved godfather an unpublished short story by an unknown author. His search for the author’s identity takes him to Bookholm—the so-called City of Dreaming Books. On entering its streets, our hero feels as if he has opened the door of a gigantic secondhand bookshop.
    Thus begins his journey in the treacherous underground where books are alive, scheming, and intent on trapping and torturing you in catacombs hard to escape. What is so compelling, though, is this short story, which I seem to recall is only ten pages long, is the most spectacular piece of fiction ever written. When Optimus shows it around to the booksellers, they grow obsessive. You watch the fleet of emotions that come across their faces as they