An Answer for Mary G.

On the arc a story might follow during revision...

In the comments to last Sunday’s post, Mary G. asked for some clarification on the following claim:

"There is a rising tension; the story starts cornering itself, by asking a vital question that, though it needs to be answered, is being made more difficult to answer with every paragraph. We might say that a story’s relentless honesty eventually converts that question into a conundrum, one that we are, due to the wisdom of the story, suddenly happy to leave unsolved, and that often will assume the form:

“What is to be done about X?”

“Indeed, what is to be done? Good question?”

And that move from “wanting an answer” to “realizing that any answer is inadequate” represents a sort of deepening of the way we think about things – a temporary deepening but a deepening nonetheless. "

Mary’s question was: “What is the question in “Victory Lap” that becomes a conundrum that a reader is happy to leave unsolved?”