What's the Question?

I've already confessed I don't care much for the conscious development of theme and such here. It's on my list of current 'failings', I'm sure. I've gone to various writing boards and pages to ask questions. I've finally decided I'm a "special snowflake": I don't choose a theme before I start writing a story.

Oh, it isn't that I don't have a clue. OK, maybe I don't have a clue. But what I always have is a question, which leads to another question then another. The story begins.

For example, here are some of the questions I asked with some of the projects I'm working on.

1. Rain: The initial questions were: Is a one-night stand or getting picked up at a bar always a bad idea? Does anything like love ever come out of them? What if was romantic destiny? Yeah, pretty much very stupid, very risky questions to answer realistically. But why not?
2. Snow: This one came right out of Rain. What if Cheryl's old boss was not the kindly silver-haired gentleman so frequently associated with the job title of judge? What if he were young, unmarried, and attractive? How would Gerry respond when this man shows up? Why/How would the judge? What is he looking for?
3. Familiar Strangers: By this time I'm sure some of us (if not most) have met someone in real life (IRL) we first met online, both in a romantic sense and a friend sense. Can the 'friend' become a romantic partner? What happens when it's discovered they are not what they first appeared to be?
4. Dani's Song: Let's just ditch this worn-out cliché that only a woman can be the Beauty and only a man can be the Beast. Really! What if it was the other way around?

No, none of them will end up answering all of the initial questions. One question leads to another---always. Sometimes---OK, quite frequently--- the question becomes irrelevant or morphs into something totally different. One of the things I've discovered about questions is one must learn to ask the right questions. It makes all the difference in getting the right answers.

I sometimes think I ask too many questions but my characters seem bent on answering them.