Hit the right chord

     I came out of the journalism era in which we were taught to answer the five basic questions: Who, what, where, when and why. It wasn't long before I realized you could accomplish all of that and yet the reader could still say, "so what?" as in "who cares?" So, "so what?" is the question you never want your reader to ask. Put another way, it is the question you are obligated to answer in your writing so that it will never be asked.
     The great screenwriter, Nora Ephron ("When Harry Met Sally"), who died last week, put it this way: "You better make them care about what you think. It had better be quirky or perverse or thoughtful enough so that you hit some chord in them. Otherwise, it doesn't work. I mean, we've all read pieces where we thought, "Oh, who gives a damn?"