Session Two · Unit I — The Short Story
The Seven Questions Every Story Must Answer
Sunday, May 24, 2026
Handouts & Worksheets
Main Points of the Lesson
- Move from definition (Session 1) to application: the seven questions become a working lens on a real story.
- The seven questions: whose story is it? — what does this character want? — what stands in the way? — what is at stake? — when does the story change? — what does the character understand at the end that they did not understand at the beginning? — why this story, and why now?
- A strong story answers all seven. A weak story leaves one or more unanswered — usually without the writer knowing.
- The seventh question is the hardest, and the one that separates publishable fiction from competent fiction.
Reading for Class — Click to Open
- Charlotte Perkins Gilman, “The Yellow Wallpaper” — Project Gutenberg (public domain). A short, taut 1892 story told in the journal of a woman confined to a room for her own good. Every one of the seven questions has a clear answer in the text — and the unreliability of the narrator makes the diagnostic vivid.
After Our Discussion — Critical Reception
- The Yellow Wallpaper — Charlotte Perkins Gilman (National Library of Medicine) — Historical and medical background to Gilman’s story from the National Library of Medicine.
In-Class Practice
In pairs, take three of the seven questions and try to answer them — about the piece you wrote in Session 1, about anything you have written recently and would like to think about, or, if nothing comes to mind, about the Gilman story we just read. Use the worksheet below. Nothing needs to be brought to class beyond your notebook.
What happens with this: the conversation stays inside your pair. Notes go in your notebook. Nothing is collected. We will surface anything you choose to surface in the discussion that follows.
Discussion Questions
- Whose story is “The Yellow Wallpaper”? Where in the text do we know?
- What does the narrator want? What does she think she wants? Are they the same?
- When does the story change? Can you locate the turn?
- What does the narrator understand at the end that she did not understand at the beginning? — and what is the gap between what she understands and what we, as readers, understand?
- Of the seven questions, which one is hardest to answer — either for the Gilman, or for something you have written or are thinking about writing? Why?
From the Required Text
If you have a copy of Imaginative Writing by Janet Burroway, read the first chapter.
Homework
- Read Katherine Mansfield’s “At the Bay” — one click from the Session 3 box below, or from the Readings page. It is longer than what we have read so far; give yourself an hour.
- Optional — about ten minutes: answer two of the seven questions about a single page of writing you have done in this course so far, or about anything in your notebook.
Before Next Sunday — Session 3
Scene & Summary — When to Slow Down, When to Move. We move from what a story does to how it controls time on the page. We will mark Mansfield’s opening pages paragraph by paragraph, and then mark a page of writing of your own the same way.
The Seven Questions Worksheet — for your private notebook
Copy this list into a Word document. Answer it for the Gilman, for the piece you wrote in Session 1, or for any story you are thinking about — whether on the page yet or not. This stays in your private notebook — never collected, never read aloud unless you choose.
- Whose story is it? ____________________
- What does this character want? ____________________
- What stands in the way? ____________________
- What is at stake? ____________________
- When does the story change? ____________________
- What does the character understand at the end that they did not at the beginning? ____________________
- Why this story, and why now? ____________________