We’ve already talked about how Notebooking can help you to ask better questions, in fact, Notebooking is one of the fastest ways to develop your question asking skills.

Want to make it happen faster?  Want to jump start the question asking genius inside your head?  Read on.

We, as Notebookers, often write about our experiences.  Whether recent experiences or distant memories, our lives tend to be the starting point from which we put pen to page.  This is fine.  This is normal.  This can be boring.

What follows is a list of questions that can help your writing and jump start your question asking skills.

When Notebooking an experience try asking yourself some of these questions:

• What 3 emotions did this experience evoke in you and why?  When we write about an experience it’s easy to fall into the trap of writing only one emotion or tone.  Call it a natural tendency for narrative consistency or tone.  However, emotions rarely travel alone.  They tend to bring their friends.  The truth is that people are complicated so naturally emotions can be complicated too.  If you experience excitement it’s probable you felt anticipation too.  You might have even felt some anxiety.  We’re even capable of feeling conflicting emotions at the same time!  If you experienced the feeling of contented calm maybe you also felt a little melancholy, it happens.  If you’re writing about an experience and you leave out the depth of emotion you felt, you are leaving out some depth of writing.
• What did you learn?  It’s often said that there are only 2 ways humans learn:  experience and Sesame Street.  If you didn’t learn from an experience you had it might as well have not happened.  Don’t worry though, you can just as easily ask yourself, What can I learn from this experience?
• What do you wish you had learned from this experience?  Sometimes it’s only through the lens of time that we can fully understand something.  We can get more out of our experiences if we continue to learn from them.
• Why does this experience stand out in your memory?  You chose this memory to write about, you must have done so for a reason.  Take some time to discover what this experience is trying to tell you.
• How would you like to remember this experience?  This is where you take control.  We are all haunted by bad or awkward memories yet, through Notebooking and re-framing, we can change how we feel about them.
• Finally, Summarize this memory in a way that puts it to rest.  This can crystallize a memory in a sort of time capsule.  The power and control we have over our experiences is astonishing.  Use it!

If you ask yourself these questions when you write, not only will your writing improve but you will begin to think in terms of good questions.  Good questions lead to great writing and even greater conversations!

• Bonus question!  How would you tell a story of this experience that is either funny or self-deprecating?  You know those people who always seem to tell funny and engaging stories?  This is how you become one of those people.