In other words, trying to find a good formula for a good book when few can agree on what a "good" book is.
The subjective nature of novelling is obvious. Half the time I can't stand my own writing enough to give it a reread, yet I have readers calling me everything from "genius" to "perfect" to "a God or something." Either one side is wrong, or there's not that much of a "wrong."
That's not to say someone has to love every piece of writing. I think I'm safe in saying that (exempting over-encouraging parents and the like) no one's going to really enjoy a story of about 50 words, all of them misspelt so miserably no one can tell whether the main character's name is Angel, Angle, or Agnlee. Constant grammatical errors, likewise. A 70,000-word novel composed of only simple sentences is probably no more readable than the other two.
Once an author has a tolerable grasp of writing, though, things start to get murky. Maybe the concept is interesting, but the story seems bland and unexciting—but that was my opinion on the Twilight series (what of it I could get through), and it has a few fans out there. Maybe the plot is contrived and disorienting, but the characters and concept make up for it (what I feel about Takamagahara). Maybe some of the characters are terribly flat, but the others are interesting enough to keep things afloat, as in Brutal.
In short, novelling seems to be a complex dance of plot points, characters, setting, concept, and others, where a good enough aspect can drag the others out of the dustbin, or a bad enough one can pull the others down into it. Exactly what can outweigh what else is up to each reader's preference.
Therein lies the frustration. What will enough people like to make a book profitable? There are trends now, but, by the time this book is written and edited, what will they be? Are my preferences similar enough to others' that I can just write what I like, and everything will work out?
I hope that last question can be answered with a "yes," because that's all I'm interested in doing. I write the stories that drive me and hope some others will tolerate it. I'm not confident that will work so well once I actually get into the business, but, when everything is so subjective, I can't predict what others' reactions will be, anyway.
Any thoughts?
Hey, I'd think most people agree with you there on Twilight ...
ReplyDeletePersonally, the things I care about the most in a story are the characters. Once I get attached enough to characters, I fangirl obsessively over a thing, not caring if its storyline is lacking or absent. Hetalia is pretty much my life right now, and despite how much I love it I couldn't say it has anything resembling a storyline. However, that's okay with me, because I love the characters enough to be sucked into their world - not to mention the premise allows for a very in-depth fandom which makes up for the lack of a coherent plot. Alternately, if something has an amazing storyline but just okay characters (like how I found Percy Jackson - brilliant idea, but none of the characters reached out and grabbed me) I'll still like it, but not as much. I've read all the PJ books, and enjoyed them, but I'm not heavily involved in the fandom. (But then again, perhaps I'm not the best person to ask about characterization, seeing as my favorite character from Hunger Games is the boy from District 3. DX)
A good plot is really important, too, though, because nobody's going to pick up a book and read it long enough to know the characters unless the plot sounds engaging. It's also what will make the readers want to keep reading, obviously. Personally, I consider a good plot to be something that's involved, that has a lot of world-building. I don't care if its been done before - for example, I loved the plots of Percy Jackson, which are really quite similar to Harry Potter, but the intricacy and creativity of the Greek myth-based world kept me hooked. I also think a good plot has to be kind of like (bear with my extreme social-studies-geekery here) the capitalist economic model of boom and bust. What I mean by this is, the action has to keep rising, but within that it can have highs and lows. Areas of tension, and areas for the characters to rest. Character-building can happen in both. So imagine the plot like a like that's undulated, but keeps moving upwards (until the climax, obviously). If the status quo is maintained for too long, people will get bored, but if there isn't time to breathe, the story will be lacking in heart.
Well, that's the best advice I can give you from my POV. The real best advice, though, is what you wrote in the last paragraph - "I write the stories that drive me and hope some others will tolerate it." If you're not interested in a story, then chances are others won't be either. Unless it's called Break Out. /shot for hypocrisy
You definitely have a point on characters. That must be the reason there are so many AU stories out there.
DeleteMax doesn't count as a bad point, since he got his characterisation in the fan fiction. :P
Plot's definitely important, too. I have to admit I've put down several books a few pages in just because nothing was happening (last time, the main character was rambling about her mother's job or something instead). Cool point there, too. You nerd. :P