Are you a master of the afterthought? I am.

I am in many situations where people ask me questions and I respond. I do the best I can to construct intelligent and thoughtful answers on the spot. We all are on the spot at parties and at the office when our boss asks us questions to respond with complete answers. Some of us are better at this skill than others are.

I am reasonably good at the quick response. However, later I am always plagued with the afterthought, such as, I wish I had said this or that, or I wish I could have used the example that I just now thought of to make my point more forcefully or more clearly. It is the plague of the afterthought.

Authors are not plagued by the stress of the afterthought dilemma, they capitalize on it as they write and edit old material.The afterthought plague is solved by writing fictional dialogue. If you think of a better answer that your heroine could have said, then you just change the answer until you achieve the clever response that you wish.  That is precisely why I prefer authoring fiction to real time responses. However, I have learned that a person can improve their responses by question anticipation. For example, your boss is always going to ask you how the project is going, ergo it should not be hard to prepare a complete answer.

At special gatherings, people ask what do you do? No problem prepare a clever and short response. You can customize your response to be closed or open ended, which will solicit additional questions. What do you do? I send bad guys to jail.  I am a writer. I create fantasies for people. With these answers, there will be more questions. Short answers are always preferred. Tonight I will be at a wedding reception with people that I have never met, When I get the classic question, I am going to respond "I write fiction." And then wait for the next question. I know it is unforgivable.

Think about it.

Are you the master of the afterthought or are you on top of your game with the classic questions?