What makes a good story? But that’s a question anyone would answer differently… so it might be clearer written the other way around: what story counts as good, at least for a thrillseeking, fiction-obsessed geek like myself. And how that can’t help but be the first steps in understanding the fantasy I’m trying to write.
The blogging world is full of easy answers to that, enough options to make the choice hard. Conflict of course, real use of story structure, characters—that one always make me wince the way it’s thrown around so casually, but that’s a post for another day.
Or it might start with basic genre. Comedy and mystery are all very well, but I’m the one who notices that DC Comics now has its superheroes on a broadcast network at 8 pm for four out of five weeknights. Still, the screenful of power beams don’t make me forget that an Arrow villain can “hack a nuclear missile to fuel for launch in 24 hours”… and the missile’s keepers never think to yank its wires. Agents of SHIELD has a plainer costume style, but it can be a downright relief to switch over there and hear its super/spies talk about a mission plan that at least knows when it’s cutting corners.
Call it sheer believability. A story can rub two cool elements together and trust that they’ll make enough sparks, or it can trace out what that coolness ought to have behind it to bring it into the story, and some of the other effects that they generate as well. Anyone can come up with a mind-reading hero, but exactly what he do to switch off his gift every minute of day? How many layers of suspicion do his friends have to go through to really trust him?
Dig deeper. Let a story work out how many ripples each twist makes, and use them to give more glimpses of how much is going on, more signs of why it all matters. With background they call it rich world-building and a convincing environment; when a character reacts to more of them it’s better characterization.
That and, I’d rather read and write about how someone flunked out of Arcana College than Notre Dame. Paranormal elements need at least as much detail as “the gritty mundane” does, if they’re going to give us a full sense of what it’s like to have power at our fingertips—and how that power’s not the same as how other writers work it. (No, Batman can’t keep swinging on down the block like Spider-Man, not if his grapnel’s still human technology.)
And with all those extra routes to look down… shouldn’t a story use them instead of following the proverbial beaten path? Yes, some tales are more comforting than others, and the overall arc ought to hold together. But even a familiar storyline ought to pick just how many things are allowed to wrong (and right), and own that to make us feel the pressure.
Or when the story’s not so simple? Well, take a look at K M Weiland’s nod to Brent Weeks: http://www.helpingwritersbecomeauthors.com/how-to-write-books-readers-cant-put-down/. Brent is an author who bends rules until they scream to keep the reader hooked.
Dig deep, and hit hard. That sums so much of it up.
Or, here’s something I put together last year:
How should a hero fight for his life? With what weapons?
How would you?
Would you tense to catch the first echo in the alleys around you, that could be your enemy about to strike? Charge forward to reach the person you’re protecting in time? Every step could be the one that lets the enemy get behind you–and if you have the gift to see right through those shadows or leap over the walls, could you use it in time?
And, what would you fight for? What person, or what dream, would make you step out of your daily cubicles and into the line of fire? Think of the day after the adventure, trying to go back to work and wondering who might be tracing you back to your own life… or if, just maybe, you have a chance to stay out there and build something better.
Except, who can you really trust? It might be that you can protect your family best by working with that “enemy,” if you can get the right leverage on him. Or perhaps the friends, that you thought were safer away from the things you’ve seen, have their own reasons for walking into danger too. And every move, every choice you make, could be leading you deeper into a trap where no amount of power can break you free because you never spotted how–
–It’s alright. You don’t have to turn the page.
When I’m writing supernatural suspense, I know one thing: never fight fair.
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