What do you think makes a good story?

[Kyanbu The Legend]

When you think about, a good story always seems subjective. There is never really a clear definition of one since what counts as a good story can very from person to person. One man's "Twilight" is another man's "Stand by Me".


Personally I think what makes a good story is one that catches your interest from the paragraph of Chapter 1 or the first 10 minutes of an episode/movie. With lovable well rounded, 3 dimensional characters that the readers can relate to. A compelling story arc that brings out your emotions as you read from chapter to chapter or watch from scene to scene. With amazing levels of detail discribed and showen on the pages to out standing artwork, CGI, and remarkable sets that bring you into their world. Where all elements within the story remain consistent with one another. With heart stopping twists that leave you begging for more, and an ending that brings closer to the story and a feeling of satisfaction for reading through or watching it to the end. Or a cliff hanger leaving you anxious for the sequal.


That's what I think makes a good story if not a great one. What do you guys think makes a great story?

[phil_]

I'm more concerned with whether I enjoy something than whether it's good or not. The preceding sentiment is mostly useless when it comes to writing.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

boobies

[Karrrrrrrrrrrresche]

Nothing makes a good story. No one element or particular portion of the story is more important than the other. A story with a good middle but bad beginning and end can still be a good story as long as you can look back to the work and find meaning in the totality.
At that I don't think what makes one story good will make other stories good. I appreciate Hot Fuzz for the brevity it uses in its dialogue and Shaun of the Dead because it fills up the time with such irrelevant but endearing bullshit the characters throw around at one another.

[The Sevenshot Kid]

One man's "Twilight" is another man's "Stand by Me".

Did you just fucking compare Stand by Me to Twilight?!

[Fifthfiend]

No one man's Twilight is pretty much another man's Twilight.

Except it's actually more likely a woman's twilight and then we have to get into the whole gender THING about that so instead I'm just gonna say one man's transfartzers 2 is another man's transfartzers 2.

Ontopically I guess a 'good' story is one that portrays things in a way that's comically or compellingly insightful about people and the world they live in.

EDIT: Like okay I should be slightly more fair to Twilight in that it at least clearly poked some sort of untapped need for a lot of people but that doesn't mean I have to pretend it's good or not toxically misogynist.

TF2 don't really even have that excuse though.

[Amake]

I like a story with credible, consistent, human characters. Everything else can usually be derived from that; I think any great story is one where you can get the sense the author just came up with the characters and let them dictate the story, the world and the artistic direction to the author on their own terms.

Not that that's necessarily how the story was made, just that you can believe that's possibly how it was made when you look at it. That is when you look at a story from outside, critically studying the craft, not when you're immersed in consuming it. If you can get involved while reading/watching/etc the work to the point where you forget that it is a fiction, then it's already a good story. Though, I'm not sure if you can compare the kind of stories that are good while they happen and the kind that stays with you afterwards. There's probably a lot of nuances I'm neglecting but anyway that's my opinion as a writer up past bedtime.

[Karrrrrrrrrrrresche]

TF2 don't really even have that excuse though.

I don't know what you're talking about. Team Fortress 2 has awesome writing.

[Kim]

POWER LEVELS

[Aldurin]

Sloppy makeouts, the sloppier the better.

[Doc ock rokc]

Good characters.- They don't have to be completely 3 dimensional. they just need to have enough personality to make it where you can imagination them in other situations. Even a two bit two line character can have a personality and motivations beyond being a extra. a good story will show that.

Good villains.- The villain(s) is the main course of any good story and should always be 3 dimensional. They don't always have to make sense but they should always have their own twisted type of sense. The villain having a good understandable, if extreme, agenda works nicely. it's imperative that good villains don't grab a hold of the Idiot ball unless there is a fucking good reason for this.

Good heroes.- A good hero is also required to be 3 dimensional and approachable. The hero needs to be something to aspire to or connect with. Superman/Captain America are such a good damn examples of a hero as their morals and ideas are what a person should aspire to be. While Spider-man is such good hero as you can connect with him.
a hero obviously needs to be way over there heads even if others think the hero can handle such situations because of their reputation.

Good Plot. A good well tied up plot with no idiotic character moments and no deus ex machina (unless it's been reasonably foreshadowed and rather well executed)
a good plot will have little to no plot holes and a mediated rise to the climax.

Detail. Sometimes too much detail can kill a good book (FUCK YOU TOLKEN AND YOUR 3 PAGES OF MAGIC BUNNY SHIT! GET BACK TO THE FELLOWSHIP ALREADY!) doing detail on the move is imperative to be good. twinges of extra information here and there is nice and really is great when i foreshadows something.

Adsorbing. If a story is good. then it adsorbs you and even little bits of irregular logic would fade away.

[MSperoni]

Personally I think what makes a good story is...etc.

Sounds good! But I think this is like the textbook idea of what it takes to make a story great. It's like saying "What makes a great story great is that it has all the elements that we've been told a great story should have."

"That singer is good because she has a nice voice..."

etc...

I think if anyone crafted a story that perfectly followed these rules they would come up with something well-made...but not necessarily special. Well-crafted boredom exists for sure (In my opinion "The King's Speech" falls into this category. The movie is well put together, extremely well acted, but I watched it and I was "Meh".).

It's like some stories follow the "well made" formula so exactly it's obvious what they're gonna do without even having to read them.

But I guess well-crafted and boring is better than poorly-crafted and boring. At least in the former case it's not shitty.

Ontopically I guess a 'good' story is one that portrays things in a way that's comically or compellingly insightful about people and the world they live in.

Yeah, that's about what I'd say too.

boobies

Except Smarty said this.


POWER LEVELS

And then Liz said this.


If you can add Pokemon and Final Fantasy to Power Levels and Boobies somehow then I think that's probably what makes for the best story.

[Kim]

So basically a bit titted Pikachu wielding a bankai and fighting Sephiroth.

[MSperoni]

Someone ought to draw that.



Or should she be fighting Nappa?

[BitVyper]

Goku.

[Azisien]

Compelling characters do it for me. Or almost any kind of humour.

[Kyanbu The Legend]

Someone ought to draw that.



Or should she be fighting Nappa?

...

Damn it! I'll be back in a minute. *grabs his tablet and Stylus*

[MSperoni]

I thought about drawing Boobachu myself, but I'm too busy working on The Dreadful at the moment :D

[Krylo]

Kit vs Boobachu, fight of the century, next time on Dreadful Alcohol Ads.

[MSperoni]

Maybe Boobachu is Kit. Like her secret superhero identity when she's fighting crime on the streets of Neopolis.

Kit vs Boobachu, fight of the century, next time on Dreadful Alcohol Ads.

Pretty soon I'm going to announce a "Guest Comic Submission" thing, so maybe that will be one of the ones selected :D

[The Sevenshot Kid]

You know what makes a good story? A good plot. Take Inception for example. The characters in that movie are not the most three-dimensional out there but they're likable. What matters it that the plot is well-crafted and all the pieces of it fit together in the right way.

[Krylo]

Maybe Boobachu is Kit. Like her secret superhero identity when she's fighting crime on the streets of Neopolis.


BOOB-A-CHUUUUUUU (http://v.cdn.nuklearpower.com/comics/dreadful/110830.jpg)

[MSperoni]

BOOB-A-CHUUUUUUU (http://v.cdn.nuklearpower.com/comics/dreadful/110830.jpg)

It is starting to make sense!



EDIT: For some reason I forgot about that part of the comic...

BIGGER EDIT: Throwing up lightning, now that makes for a good story (I hope).

[Marelo]

Yeah, I fall under the "it's complicated" camp. I don't think there's a formula for it. Storytelling is an art form and what works for one story doesn't necessarily work for another, just like visual art conventions.

Kraken has wonderful characters out the wazoo, but a tired plot already well-treaded by others. I love it for the characters, and not the plot.

Embassytown, by the same author no less, has strong (though to some degree less enchanting) characters and a razor-sharp, fresh plot and symbolism that that all hook up with each other like an Ouroboros. I love it for its headily abstract themes being concretely grounded so well.

Different stories, different ideas, have different needs and different strengths. Quality, then, is generally a matter of effectiveness for the individual story in question.

[Kyanbu The Legend]

It is starting to make sense!



EDIT: For some reason I forgot about that part of the comic...

BIGGER EDIT: Throwing up lightning, now that makes for a good story (I hope).

Throwing up Lightning, is pretty rad.

[MSperoni]

Throwing up Lightning...

http://media1.gameinformer.com/imagefeed/featured/squareenix/finalfantasy/finalfantasyxiii-2/lightning-1135-610.jpg

It was a Final Fantasy reference ALL ALONG.

[Kyanbu The Legend]

Keep being Rad, Matt.

[rpgdemon]

Keep being Rad, Matt.

Keep being Red, Kyanbu.

[Betty Elms]

The closest thing to a consistent component in "a good story" is relevance to the world we live in. If art has nothing meaningful to say about life, why should i give any fucks?

Any bored fourteen year old can string together a chain of incidents and call it a story, but if the only thing it has to say is "this happened and then this happened and then this happened and for some fucking reason you're supposed to care" i'll have no use for it. Technical skill and craftsmanship in the execution can always elevate something, but a good story will pretty much never have any valid reason to settle for being an irrelevant bundle of creative solipsism.

[MSperoni]

Keep being Rad, Matt.

I'll try! :)


But I'll never be as rad as this kid:

http://www.justsaypictures.com/images/rad-kid.jpg

[Kyanbu The Legend]

And no one will ever be as rad as him.

The boy is legendary.

[MSperoni]

If someone were to write a story about him it would be automatically Totes Rad.

What makes a good story? I think we know now.

[Kyanbu The Legend]

Yes without a doubt.

[ZARAK]

What do you think makes a good story?
Ninjas, dinosaurs, robots, dragons, lesbian space pirates, evil genius monkeys, alien princesses, and Samuel L. Jackson. In that order.

[Kyanbu The Legend]

Ninjas, dinosaurs, robots, dragons, lesbian space pirates, evil genius monkeys, alien princesses, and Samuel L. Jackson. In that order.

I like this guy. :cool:

[kyrtuck]

Holy grud dammit, why am I so slow on dis shit?

Okay, things I wanna see in a story: (and this applies to movies, books, comics, and games)

- more colorful wilderness, less "grey buildings all the fucking time" cityscapes

-Destinies, prophecies and other worldly powers at work, preferably when they are more subtle.

-Main heroes who are underdogs, outcasts, imperfect. Or just anyone who feels like they've earned stuff and NOT had everything handed on a silver platter.

-Antivillains, Tragic villains, villains with well explained motives. NOT shallow, power hungry overlords commanding countless, uniformity loving legions.

-Protagonist Motley Crews with diverse personalities, races (or at least appearances), abilities, talents, social statuses, expiriences. NOT token minorities who are "just there". NOT wastes of space who just let some white dick with god-like power do everything cool and important.

-Foreign/fantasy/alien cultures who do NOT rely on white dicks to solve everything for them.

-LESS white dicks in the protagonist roles.

-And less American involvement in stories that supposedly take place "all around the world". I ecspecially dislike Newyork and California beig overrepresented.



...naturally everything I watch/read/play dosen't perfectly fit all those standards, ecspecially the overuse of white dicks thing. But at least you should have a good inkling of what I hate and why I hate it.