2. What in your mind, makes a great story? What elements are essential for an exciting or engaging story? |
All great stories are built from a sturdy foundation, which includes a trance-like beginning, an easy to understand purpose or a moral, a conflict, and a satisfactory ending. Great stories include all of these characteristics, and undoubtedly, much more. All things have a beginning and an end. Likewise, so does a story. But the difference between a good story and a bad one is the smoothness of the transitions and the plausibility of the situation. For example, one could provide the example of Cinderella, or any of the other children’s classics. They all begin with the phrase, “once upon a time...” and bring the reader to a fantasy world that allows the reader to easily believe in fairies and magic. If the story began all of a sudden, the reader would be tyrannously yanked from reality and put into the fantasy world of Cinderella. This sudden transaction would cause discomfort and doubt for the reader and wrinkle the process of reading and diving into the world of the story. Therefore, all good stories must contain a good beginning that bridges reality and the fantasy world. The second factor that makes a good story is an easy-to-relate-purpose. A chain reaction occurs, starting with this purpose of the story. A story easy to relate to is also easy to understand, and a story easy to understand allows for a deeper understanding. Therefore, the deeper the reader goes, the more detailed the story becomes. This in turn, allows for the reader to truly become one with the story. They become part of it, and that’s what makes a story enjoyable and great. The power to bring people into an alternate universe, the story’s universe, is without a doubt, a very important factor for making a great story. The third factor of a superior story is an excellent conflict that keeps the reader interested at all times. The conflict between people must be dynamic and conflicts between societies must be concrete until the resolution. Failure to create the above scenario would either cause the reader to think, “It’s so obvious” or “It’s too boring, I don’t understand this.” So in order to prevent either one of these cases, a good story requires a touch of suspense of the conflict, a plausible unexpected twist that resolves some of the conflicts, and a change of pace and … |