The Best Story

What makes good writing? Now, I am not talking about these little blurbs that I post every once in a while, I am talking about stories. Tales. Epics. Legends. While perfectly composed sentences that rhymthicly flow and have depth to them are important in any writing, ultimately, these are not what captivate a reader. It is not the beautiful scenery, a new environment, the words that are used, or a way in which an action sequence is described which makes a story good enough to envelope oneself in. It is not the author's voice, though that can help to change the tone of a story. It is the character that draws us in.

Think about the stories that you find yourself returning to time and time again. True, they may have interesting plotlines, but the authors of these stories have you hooked because they have connected you and the characters. People like to read stories about the underdog defeating the greatest odds. Betrayal because everyone has been betrayed. Love, because everyone wants to be loved. Revenge because everyone has been wronged. Depression because not every day is happy. Aloneness because sometimes even your friends forsake you. Forgiveness because everyone knows that there is someone they have hurt. Reconciliation because there is always someone that you want back in your life. A good story is not about merely events, but about what the characters are going through as they experience these events.

Notice that happiness was not on that list. Happiness is the end goal. We as readers know that our lives are not always happy, so we want to see characters whose lives are not happy. This isn't because misery loves company, but because we know at the end of the story the character will find happiness (for the most part) and that is what we want for ourselves too. We live vicariously through the characters.

New ideas, inventions and environments can help to hook a reader into the story, but these things quickly lose their novelty. What keeps any reader hooked into the story is the connection that they feel with the character. They feel their ups and downs and feel like the character is their friend. They feel hope for the character in his world, desiring that their own world will feel that same hope and victory in the end.