The central question your story poses that keeps the reader reading until they get an answer.
The dramatic question is the core question that your narrative raises - usually near the beginning - and answers at or near the end. It is the engine of reader engagement, the thing that makes someone think, "I need to find out what happens." Every story has at least one overarching dramatic question ("Will Frodo destroy the ring?"), and most have smaller ones at the scene and chapter level that keep momentum going between the big answers.
If you cannot articulate your story's dramatic question, you might not have a story yet - you might have a situation or a vibe, but not a narrative. Knowing your dramatic question keeps your writing focused. Every scene should either push toward answering it or complicate it further. When you lose your reader's attention, it is often because the dramatic question has gone fuzzy.
Can Gatsby recapture the past and win Daisy? The answer drives every party, every gesture, every green light.
How far will Walter White go, and what will be left of him? The question escalates with every episode.
Can Amir find redemption for his childhood betrayal? This question hangs over every chapter.
If the central question is resolved in the middle of your book, you need a new question to carry the second half - or you need to restructure so the answer comes later.
Try writing your story's dramatic question as a single sentence. If you struggle to do this, your narrative may lack a clear through-line.
"What will happen?" is not a dramatic question. "Will this specific character overcome this specific obstacle?" is. Specificity creates investment.
Pick a story you love - a novel, a movie, a TV episode - and write down its central dramatic question in one sentence. Then list three scene-level dramatic questions from that same story. Notice how the smaller questions feed into and sustain the bigger one.