What makes a good story?

[Bex]

Is it compelling characters, sensational plots or a mixture of both? What are some of your favorite stories, and how have you incorporated elements of them into your own writing?

[kellyzollo]

I think to me a good story has a mix of both. Compelling characters with good plot points. If your character is too Mary Sue for me I probably won't read it. I like a lot realism and strong characterization, I'm always reading something from fan fiction, to a web series all the way to a new book. I'm not a huge fan of the current vampire/werewolf trend eating up most of main stream media, but I have seen some good TV shows about them and read some good fiction involving sci-fi/fantasy.

Some of my favorite authors are Ken Follett, Nora Roberts, Jodi Picoulti, Nicholas Sparks, Phillipa Greggory, Laura K. Hamilton, Terry Brooks, J.R. Tolkien and others. I love to read, something and if you have good characters and a good plot I'll likely check it out and give it a shot. It is important for me to connect with a character and if I can't do that, I get bored with the story and won't read.

I don't like weak or whinny females, or males that don't have some sort of human flaw. Probably because it stretches the boundaries or realism for me. If your character is co-dependent on a male and your male is perfect, or if I find it too cute or annoying with a ribbon on it...yeah what I said earlier about not reading.

I think I have done a good job of balance with my characters on my show, none of them are all that powerful or perfect. I would like to think that no one would find them whinny or too needy. They deal with real crap in their lives, cause I deal with real crap. What else, some inspirations come from a lot of prime time television like Cold Case. Dangerous Tides was heavily influenced by the early years of the Sopranos.

I think that is it for now.

Kelly

[scath]

Compelling characters, good dialogue, and awesome world building, in my opinion. I'll read anything that has those, even if the plot is a little weak.

If I don't like the characters, I usually won't finish reading the story. One exception was Twilight, which I read on a dare and wanted to throw across the room by page six or so. I still give the author kudos for creating characters that caused me to loathe them. =)

[kellyzollo]

One exception was Twilight, which I read on a dare and wanted to throw across the room by page six or so.

Ok I was so going to use that as an example of bad writing with a whinny and annoying female lead! So this made me laugh so hard today. I borrowed the book from a friend after she claimed it would be a great read. I suffered through that damn book, and I did throw it against the wall at least 6 times before I was done.

Needless to say I returned the other books in the series without opening a page of them.

Kelly

[cajeck]

I need good characters--flawed and sympathetic as you all had said--and also a lot of good dialogue. Depending on the nature of the story, I don't need a lot of change in scenery, or vast settings. "Ishmael" by Daniel Quinn is an example of a novel that is really just dialogue between two characters. I can read screenplays and theater scripts by themselves, too. Shakespeare, Edward Albee, and Arthur Miller are some of my favorite playwrights. Also, about plot, if the characters are well-rounded, and the situations they are cast into interesting enough, I can get by. Some of my favorite TV shows and webcomics are entirely slice-of-life.

[scath]

Feb 2, 2011 18:34:44 GMT -6 kellyzollo said:

Ok I was so going to use that as an example of bad writing with a whinny and annoying female lead! So this made me laugh so hard today. I borrowed the book from a friend after she claimed it would be a great read. I suffered through that damn book, and I did throw it against the wall at least 6 times before I was done.

Needless to say I returned the other books in the series without opening a page of them.

Kelly

I didn't even check the other books out. I heard 'sparkly vampires' and made a note not to read the series. Chelsea Quinn Yarbro and Bram Stoker introduced me to vampires, see.

But like I said, I got dared (double-dawg dared, even!), so I read the first. Haven't even looked to see if the library has the others.

That's why the book didn't get thrown at a wall. ;D

[Bex]

For me, it's all about the characters. I try to stay away from vampire stories or anything of that nature, but if the vampire is compelling enough and I understand what drives him to be so vampire-y, I will definitely give it a shot.

As for Twilight, I could barely get past the first sentence.