Important Question

[backupdump002]

Throwing this up here real quick while I'm thinking about it.

Internet, what is the main thing that you look for in a story? Three-dimensional characters? Intriguing plot? Breathtaking world/atmosphere? What is the one thing where, even if everything else about the story sucks, you'd keep following it anyway because your interest in that overshadows everything else? Just, you know, if you had to pick.

GO.

Comments

[funkicarus.livejournal.com]

i look for all of the above, but i'd say that world creation and character development are the two that matter most of all. probably characters come out a little on top, but sometimes world creation can overrule it.

for example, i love the WORLD of the comic White Noise. but the characters are a bit flat (it being mostly action). but i stick with it anyway. similar thing happens with phoenix requiem. i'm not a fan of the characters, but the way the universe is tied together is more interesting for me.

however sometimes you can have a great characters and a detailed world and i still don't care. i'm not a fan of templar, AZ. both the characters and the world construction, while in depth, bother me.

an example of mediocre world with great characters for me would be things like girl genius. like, yeah the steampunk is awesome, but nothing about the universe outside 'cool, steampunk' is what really sells me. i have to say that some of the time, i forget it *is* steampunk because they're just fighting in streets or underground mazes or on the road. the characters are what really drives GG.

so for me it's a coinflip :B

[doxinator.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's a pretty tricky question when you think about it, because a lot of it depends on the genre and medium. Sci-fi focuses more on worldbuilding, horror focuses on atmosphere, drama and mystery focus on characters/plot, fantasy focuses on plot/world, etc. Things like movies and shows could debatably have an edge on books when it comes to atmosphere due to their usage of sound and visuals, whereas books could have a leg up when it comes to characters since books allow you to get inside the characters' head and see things through their point of view. At the same time, this can totally be twisted depending on how the author approaches the story (Earthbound gives the player clever glimpses into the characters' heads by bending the atmosphere to reflect their thoughts and feelings. Silent Hill, particularly 2, also comes to mind here). IT'S ALL SO HEAVILY DEPENDANT ON EVERYTHING ADKJGH

[wishwashing.livejournal.com]

An interesting writing style. Something that's unique and thought-provoking without being too wordy. I also like it when books portray what life is REALLY like. I hate it when authors create this gifted character that thinks and acts only in a beautiful, intelligent manner. That's not how people actually are.

Example: I Am the Messenger by Markus Zusak. READ ITTTTTTTT

[puddinchan.livejournal.com]

Yaaaay, another person who uses Konata icons~ <3

[doxinator.livejournal.com]

I didn't even think of writing style when I posted this, which is weird considering how wildly gay I am for that sort of thing. Same goes for realistic characters. THOSE ARE MY TWO BIGGEST WEAK POINTS, MAN

I will totally have to check that out 8D And man, if you like unique writing styles/characters, you should definitely look into Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut. Admittedly, it's currently the only Vonnegut book I've read (which I will have to fix), but oh god it is so good. And I got it for like, seven bucks at Border's. BEST DEAL EVER

[neutraltwin.livejournal.com]

Well, I'd say all of the things working cohesively together is important, but interesting characters is definitely top of the list. I want someone I can empathise with, someone who interests me so I will care about what happens to them. If the characters are flat, I'll just go "...I really don't care what happens to you" and put the book down.

Like gogoicarus said up there, Girl Genius is a great example of good characterisation. It gets to the point where you WANT them to succeed and you truly LIKE them, rather than just passively reading.

[doxinator.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm the same way; I'm so tired of flat, cookie-cutter characters. I've gotten so jaded that pretty much ANYTHING with realistic characters that I care about automatically earns an A++++++ in my book.

Man, I need to read Girl Genius, everyone keeps raving about it :O

[batneko.livejournal.com]

CHARACTERS. You can have the most epic story in the world, but it doesn't mean shit if your characters aren't interesting.

[doxinator.livejournal.com]

I feel the same way for the most part! Though I guess, on the flipside, LotR has pretty bland characters in it (at least to me? Am I the only one who thinks the characters have no personalities outside of "brave warrior" and "wise wizard" and "clever elf" and afkdjgh), and I love those books. IT ALL DEPENDSSS

[batneko.livejournal.com]

SOMEtimes if one thing is really good, it makes up for lacks in other areas (personally I didn't like the Lord of the Rings books, and I read Le Mort D'Arthur) but most of the time, it's characters. In my opinion.

[puddinchan.livejournal.com]

I'd say all of those, because if the characters all have an interesting, non-cliche backstory and good, believable personalities, the plot should work itself.

Then again, some people like reading bad stories for the lolz.

[doxinator.livejournal.com]

Well, I mean, if you had to pick one thing above everything else, what would it be? :O Like, where would you draw the line? Would you tolerate a crappy, cliche plotline/mediocre world for characters with deep, realistic personalities, orrrr would you deal with totally flat characters for an epic adventure? Or something else (world, atmosphere, writing style, etc)?

[puddinchan.livejournal.com]

I'd much prefer the characters with deep, realistic personalities. I do sometimes read/watch things because I heard the characters were neat, but if the characters are awesome, but have a bad plotline surrounding them, I'd probably stop reading. :|

[pyrasaur.livejournal.com]

Characters are the biggest thing for me. Interesting, well-rounded people can make me forgive a lot of plot fail, and wooden, unconvincing people turn me off to even an interesting story.

Ten billion bonus points if the interesting, fleshed-out character happens to be very, very non-human. Nothing beats the "oh wow" factor of a believable person and society built from scratch.

[doxinator.livejournal.com]

Yesssssss I love that sort of thing. I mean, even if they aren't actual characters, I love it when people come up with these detailed alien species with their own biology and behavioral patterns and so forth. 83 Seriously, I could listen to that sort of thing all day.

[pyrasaur.livejournal.com]

If you like that kind of thing, you might like A Fire Upon The Deep by Vernor Vinge. It has hive-minded dog sentients. And sentient plants that ride on robot scooters. And genocidal maniac butterfly people. I lost interest in the book because of the humans' plot, personally, but Vinge puts in lots of cool little throwaway details about the non-humans and their worlds (ie. on the dogs' homeworld, rodents pollinate the flowers instead of insects).

[tigerboat.livejournal.com]

I'm gonna go ahead and say characters. The only book I've hated so much that I stopped reading it just went between terrible character after terrible character. I just realized I was forcing myself to read it and didn't actually care what happened to them.

Of course, if a story's about time travel I'll read it no matter what. There's just something about time travel that's magical.

[puddinchan.livejournal.com]

Then Prof. Layton 3 is right up your alley! |3

If the time travel makes no sense and has nothing to add to the plot, then it just... sucks.

[tigerboat.livejournal.com]

MYSTERY PUZZLES TIME TRAVEL AAAAAAA
PROFESSOR LAYTON 3, I WANT YOU

TIME TRAVEL ALWAYS MAKES SENSE AND HAS SOMETHING TO ADD
...not that I've ever read a truly, horribly bad time travel thing. BUT STILL. TIME TRAVEL IS GREAT.

[puddinchan.livejournal.com]

YOU NEED PROF LAYTON 2 FIRST

YOU HAVEN'T SEEN SONIC THE HEDGEHOG 2006 THEN

[doxinator.livejournal.com]

Yeeeah, it seems like every time I stop following a story it's usually because the characters are too boring for me to continue. The plot could be nothing but "defeat the bad guy and save the princess," but if it has well-rounded and realistic characters I'd still think it was a great story and just as unique as anything else.

Haha, I'm the same way with mysteries. I LOVE ME A GOOD MYSTERY. And psychological thriller-type things.

[tigerboat.livejournal.com]

Not only did my...hate-book have boring characters, it had about 20 boring main characters and switched between them all the time. I always forgot what the last one had been doing by the time he came around again. It was a long, long book and I only got half-way through when I gave up on it. I almost never give up on books! That thing was terrible.

I SHOULD HAVE MENTIONED MYSTERIES they are my second favourite to time travel. One of my proudest, braggingest moments is reading through the entire Sherlock Holmes collection in about a week. I would re-read it, too. Possibly even re-re-read it.

[oldsneakers.livejournal.com]

Def. characters. :D I'm a big fan of character-driven plots. Like, uh...Record of a Shopping Trip to Yokohoma? That's right up my alley. ♥

[doxinator.livejournal.com]

Ooohh I'll have to look into that 8D

This was the first thing that came to mind, but if you like character-driven plots, then, well, I just watched a movie last night called Paris, Texas (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris,_Texas_(film)), which was nothing BUT character-driven plot. 83 It's really long and starts out pretty slow, but it's definitely worth checking out, if you can find it. If not, I haven't deleted it yet, cough

[marigold-tales.livejournal.com]

Amazing, likable characters first.

Interesting plot second.

Amazing setting/backgrounds third.

Music (if it's a game/show/movie, etc.) fourth.

:D there we go.

[zarla.livejournal.com]

Hmmmmm...

If something has really hateful characters, but a good plot... I'll probably get tired and ditch it. Then again, I pretty rarely ever see a good plot, come to think of it.

If something has really hateful characters, but a really awesome world... I think I'd put up with that actually. It was definitely not the characters or plot that got me into Pokémon, that's for sure, it's the world of Pokémon and all the Pokémon themselves. That applies to a lot of things for me, I think. Of course the world has to appeal to me personally, if it's a really deeply detailed world of unending boringness I'm out of there. But I'm assuming that by breathtaking/good/intriguing you mean to me personally. |B

Awesome characters, stupid plot, I'd put up with that. I could always write a fic or something with a better plot. Silent Hill games for example aren't exactly known for their coherent, well-planned plots. :B And the plots for most of the Paper Mario games are pretty forgettable. The characters can make anything fun though if they're good enough.

Awesome characters, lame world... I think the characters would still be enough to make me put up with it, although I probably wouldn't really like it.

Awesome world, stupid plot, I'm pretty much for that. I'll just make up my own plot in that world and go with that. There's nothing I love more than a deep, expansive, engrossing world you can really get lost in. I love that stuff.

Awesome world, stupid characters, same thing. I can just write them out and make up my own characters and do things that way. No problem.


Thinking about it, probably a deep, engrossing world. If I love the world of something enough, I'll just write fic or draw art for it that takes out everything I don't like, and you still have an awesome place to play in, like a sandbox. :B And an awesome distraction from things you don't like, like characters or plot. JUST MY THOUGHTS

[doxinator.livejournal.com]

I didn't even think of Pokemon! Yeah, most of the time the world's not real important to me and it seems like a lot of stories sort of fall short of a good world, but the ones that DO have interesting worlds, yeah, I'm all over that. Pokemon, Silent Hill, Final Fantasy, Pikmin--I love just exploring and admiring all the details and the thought the creators put into making them. That's probably why it takes so long for me to finish games like those, haha.

Of course, I think a lot of it really depends on how the author works with what they've got, and also the genre/medium, like I was sayin' to gogoicarus. I mean, from what I've seen, video games tend to be more oriented towards worldbuilding than other mediums, because the interactive aspect of video games gives you so much opportunity--movies can show you a world, but games can let you play with it and explore it. And now that you mention it, I'm much more forgiving of crappy characters/plot when it comes to video games, as long as the game has an interesting world for me to run around in and observe. Everything else, though, I tend to lean more towards wanting good characters (with some exceptions) :B

i feel like none of that really made sense WHATEVER POST COMMENT

[zarla.livejournal.com]

I REALLY LIKE WORLDBUILDING SO WORLDS TEND TO APPEAL TO ME :B and why do i automatically default to games when people talk about stories wtf self

BUT GAMES GIVE YOU OPPORTUNITIES TO TELL SUCH DIFFERENT AND VARIED STORIES IN WAYS YOU CAN'T REPLICATE OTHERWISE AND BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH


Another thing that just came to me - If you have a good plot, it'll inevitably be dragged down by bad characters since generally, those characters will be driving the plot. IT IS A BAD SITUATION.

[keepthesquid.livejournal.com]

For me personally, an amazing world will be able to overpower pretty much anything. Compelling characters are a big plus as well. Especially non-humans, which is why I think I find stuff like Inhuman and Pyrasaur's writings so brain-eating. AWESOME WORLDS AND DEEP NON-HUMAN CHARACTERS? SIGN ME UP!!1!

Plot is... not much of an issue for me, I must admit. The plot could be completely vomitous, but if the characters or the world is really great I can overlook it. And like Icarus, a story could have everything I love and still just not interest me. Even a writing style I love could make me read something really bad.

An example would be House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer. The world isn't anything I find too spectacular, the writing's pretty okay in my opinion, some of the plot was... odd, but the characters I quite enjoyed. Also cloning. DECENTLY WRITTEN CLONING WILL ALWAYS BE A HUGE DRAW FOR ME. TEAL DEER but really, it's all pretty fluid. I'm on the fence, I suppose. 8D

[doxinator.livejournal.com]

I'm actually kinda surprised that there aren't more people who think plot is most important! :O I ALWAYS THOUGHT THAT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE LIKE THE MAIN THING
Then again I guess that's kind of good for me since when I write I focus all my attention on the characters and atmosphere only to realize I have no idea what they should actually do, but

YOU KNOW COME TO THINK OF IT, I DON'T THINK I'VE READ ANY STORIES ABOUT CLONING
OR IF I DID THEN THEY WEREN'T VERY GOOD SINCE I DON'T REMEMBER ANYTHING ABOUT THEM DKGHJSD