A novelist needs to know his own strong points and weak points.
Why ask a question whose answer would demand ten more questions?
A life can get knocked into a new orbit by a car crash, a lottery win or just a bleary-eyed consultant giving bad news in a calm voice.
Wars are never cured, they just go into remission for a few years.
Words are what you fight with but what you fight about is whether or not you're afraid of them.
Science devises ever bloodier means of war until humanity's powers of destruction overcome our powers of creation and our civilisation drives itself to extinction.