How? Why?

Hm. I got the comments back for my novel, and I'm too scared to read them. This was not entirely unexpected. I feel like it's more than just a story being critiqued. It's a part of me that's being critiqued, more than just my sense of style, grasp of grammar, pick of punctuation. No, more than that, it's my sense of wonder, and my imagination, those essential qualities that make me what I am, that are isolated under the spotlight, exposed for the world.

If it comes down to the choice between learning how something works, and learning why it works, I think I am the kind of person that would rather know why. The first example that popped in my head, a car. You can tell me the basics (if I recall this correctly), that gasoline fills the fuel tank, which is then somehow combusted by spark plugs, which explosion pushes twinned pistons back and forth, which transfers power from the engine block to the axle, which spins the wheels, which makes it go. That's all good and well, but I would rather know why we have cars, what situation led to us having them. Tell me about Henry Ford, his quest to make cars affordable to the modern man. Tell me how our sense of exploration and curiosity could not continue to outstrip our technology, how we would eventually come up with a way to make travel more convenient. It's human ingenuity creating the products, not necessarily the products, that tickle my fancy.

That question, "Why?", impels my story. The simple question take Rollie on his mad quest, and though I eventually reveal some of the "How?", that "How?" serves two purposes. It is a payoff to everyone wondering about the nuts and bolts of the story, revealing some more background, but sets up an even bigger "Why?" in the end. The answer he comes up with is less than satisfactory, but it is still an answer. What matters more is his journey to get there, and how he attempts to answer "Why?", and how he gets his answer, that make the story (I hope) intriguing.

It's funny, that's almost turned on its head with these comments. I have yet to see them, I'm so freaked out. But I think they're going to be a lot of "How?" (How does this work within the story construct, how this fails the story construct), and I'm going to have to figure out the "Why?" (Why did I include it in the first place), then rework the "How?" (How can I make this work with that original intent). The "Why?" is usually simple; the story is as intimate to me as a first kiss (that lasts for over two years...). The "How?" is where it all goes awry.

I write a fair amount by "feel", whether or not the sentence feels right. The more esoteric rules of sentence and paragraph construction have long since been remanded to some dark corner of my mind, but the basics are as readily remembered as an old song. It's when I'm forced to open the hood and look at the engine more carefully where the problems arise. I sort of know how it works, but not to a great degree. Thus, the reworking becomes trial and error, half-hearted stabs at success and failure. It isn't the writing that makes you great, it's the editing.

These comments show me just how far I have come, but also show me how far I have to go. Think of a solitary wanderer walking down a path where the waypoints are twice as far as before, and the sun continues to set over an endless horizon. He continues to trudge on, though the road curve on into nothingness, and he will get discouraged, but still he walks. Why? Because he must, because he cannot turn back now, because he has come too far, because somewhere in the future, down the road, lies something great.

How does he do it? One step at a time.