This course began with the premise that our writing must go beyond the facts if it is to engage and maintain readers' attention. We have already considered the issue of how to move beyond the facts by making judgments based on the factual information thrown up by our research.

Now that the research is done and the judgments drawn, we are masters of our respective subjects. Now, suddenly, perhaps unexpectedly, there is a golden opportunity for one more bold step beyond the facts into the world of purely creative thinking.

The question What if...? provides a remarkable opening into a universe of creativity.

Hypothetical Research

At first sight, it appears to be little more than a redefinition of that most familiar research tool: the hypothesis. When we used research facts to generate inductive hypotheses we were, in effect, using What if...? questions to guide our research.

Suppose, for example, that the initial research were to show that X divorced after a brief, unsuccessful marriage and vanished from sight, only to reappear ten years later with wife and twin teenage children. In our efforts to solve this puzzle, we might reasonably ask a series of What if...? questions aimed at establishing the nature of X's relationship with his second wife before his marriage to his first: What if the twins were fathered by X in an adulterous affair?; etc. Far from being mischievous, such speculations are as worthwhile as any others (see Working with Questions) insofar as they facilitate the discovery of relevant facts. When the facts have been established, the question, having served its purpose, is forgotten.

Enduring Speculation

But what if years of determined research fail to raise any satisfactory answers to such hypothetical questions? The never-ending debate among historians about the countless unanswered questions of historical research shows that unanswered What if..? questions never go away. Those who are fascinated by, even obsessed with, such questions, often choose to devote their lives to the research of minutiae.

Through this work, of course, they become members of the specialist elite whose knowledge of their subject is second to none. Their mastery of their subjects may be an end in itself, but it need not be so. Their mastery is, in effect, a licence to create hypothetical answers to enduring questions, provided, of course, that they do not impugn their recognised authority by seeking to pass off their speculations as fact.

In short, having researched one's subject thoroughly, creative writing about the subject becomes possible, whether as a means of stimulating further debate, providing the foil for a related creative project or just for fun. By inventing answers to unanswered, even unanswerable questions, after all, (taking care not to present them as fact) the writer is fulfilling both the key criteria for going successfully beyond the facts, by:

• providing lay readers with lively, original, expert insights into a subject that is new or relatively unfamiliar to them
• and challenging other experts in the field to rethink their answers to familiar questions.

Breaking the Timeline

Creative writers should be mindful of the fact that the power of What if...? questions extends far beyond the mere plugging of gaps in historical research. The key consideration is that What if...? questions enable the familiar timeline of history to be broken abruptly and irrevocably.

For example, the question What if Stalin had declined to attend the Yalta summit? opens up the possibility that sixty years of subsequent world history might need to be completely rewritten. The essential difference between this sort of question and the gap-filling question is that a single crucial, established fact is changed, not out of mischief or obfuscation but as an engine for thought. Because of the intricate relationships between causes and effects:

• no subsequent actual event may any longer be taken for granted (How would the war have ended? What would it be like to live in Britain today? etc);
• profound What if...? questions may (though not necessarily) prompt further hypotheses for debate and/or research (What were Stalin's alternatives to Yalta, if any? etc).

Speculation Based on Limited Knowledge

What if...? questions that break the timeline are particularly valuable for creative writers who have a reasonable grasp of their subject but are primarily motivated to be writers rather than researchers. Whereas the dedicated researcher cannot rest until s/he has garnered every molecule of information about the subject, the creative writer can simply slice the timeline and, with a moderate working knowledge of the subject, reinvent from there.

For such a project to be credible, the creative writer requires a detailed grasp of only two subsets of the larger universe of information that is the domain of the true expert:

• the factors in play at the moment when the timeline is to be broken;
• the environment in which the action is to be played out after the breaking of the timeline.

For example, a writer wishing to speculate about what might have happened if an historical figure had run away from home at the age of sixteen must have a good grasp of the available factual information about the character's childhood and must understand the contemporary situation of the world into which the character moves. Knowledge of the character's later life is relevant only insofar as his/her actions in adult life offer insights into childhood events and motivations.