Fiction, screenplays and even journalism operates on the basic principle of the 5 Ws:

W1: Who?

1. Who is your protagonist, and who is your narrator? Sometimes these two are the same person, but that’s not always the case. The answer to the who question determines, in large part, how you answer the next question: 

W2: What?

1. What happens in the story? What is your story really about? Are there conscious and unconscious desires playing out? Classifying the story according to one of the broad categories of genre may help you discover what your story is really about. What effect do you want the story to have on the reader?

W3: Where?

1. The ‘Where’ question is deceptively simple as it asks where the story is set. However this leads to a more complex question. Is the setting or location of the story pivotal to telling the story?

W4: When?

1. When answers the question of time. At what point in the lives of the characters is this story taking place? Are we telling a story about the past, the present or the future?

W5: Why?

1. Why characters do what they do is a very crucial question and a fundamental block in building compelling and believable characters. What the characters want, and why are they in the situation of the story? Is it a situation of their own making, or is it a situation that has been thrust upon them? Finding the why’s of the characters is perhaps the most essential question you must answer as it dictates the characters motivations, fears, goals and reason.