Andrei's blog

What makes a good story?

Replication is by far the easiest way to make money. You take a recipe that somebody else painfully devised, and use it for your own benefit with zero startup costs. If you are a little bit smart about it you might be able to notice the shortcomings of the original and make your design superior, but usually replicators go the other way and figure out how to decrease the quality without affecting sales.

There are many bad stories

AliExpress and Chinese fakes are the most famous form of it, patents and copyright require active monitoring of shopping websites and the sheer numbers usually win against the original company's limited monitoring staff. (Although AI monitoring is already coming for the knockoffs.)

What I would like to talk about, however, is replication in literature and movie industries. There is 1 unique book for every 50 people on earth, and if you include other types of media such as articles movies, fan-fiction, and this blog, it becomes pretty clear that many things are basically never read or viewed. I can tell you why: because they are bad. Yes, sometimes there are some hidden gems that will perhaps forever be be buried in piles of "wanna write the next Harry Potter" books, but now with AI the amount of terrible content will drive the proportion of good books even closer to zero.

And it doesn't help that good books (and especially movies) are surrounded by trilogies, sequels and prequels designed to squeeze every last bit of money out of the fans (eg. Cars 3 and all Rick Riordan's books after Percy Jackson)

What does a typical knockoff book look like?

Ever since Harry Potter became popular, countless authors have tried to replicate the recipe with varying levels of success. I won't lie, I was also into them for a while, but I quickly started to notice patterns.

You know you had enough bad fantasy books when you are able to predict what will happen next, and the scenes and plots start becoming repetitive, even worse, books are a huge disappointment when you are able to come up with a better ending than the original author.

I seriously want to cry when I notice an author used an ending from a book I already read and didn't even bother to pretend he or she didn't copy the homework (sometimes I really want to write an entire "fixed" fanfic for that book). If you are writing the next children fantasy bestseller, please tell me, I will help you with the plot for free.

For purposes of my next point, lets quickly go over the flagship children fantasy novels:

What makes a good story?

There is a famous story about a large number of publishers not wanting to publish Harry Potter, and Rowling having to go from publisher to publisher begging to publish the book (I saw this alongside some moral teaching about persevering in face of difficulties.)

According to Wikipedia it had something to do with the book being to long, but in my eyes the length is the least concerning thing here. I am sorry Harry Potter fans, but the plot of the book is a disaster, and a disaster for 6 more books straight (so are many parts of Percy Jackson).

I should stop beating around the bush, so here are my criteria, and further down will be my thoughts about each of them:

What makes a Good Story!

  1. A twist is something the reader forgot about, not something the author quickly created out of thin air because he didn't think the plot through.
  2. A good story is a story the author put his thoughts and (good) ideas into. If you only have bad (or not enough) ideas it means you shouldn't be an author.
  3. Stories are as long as they need to be. If you have enough ideas for 10 pages, then make your book 10 pages, don't waste people's time.
  4. If it is not your idea, make it obvious and keep it short. An author who has no idea for a scene, should keep that scene short and insert a less detailed well known scene from real life or famous literature.
  5. The main point/centerpiece of one book, should be revealed in the previous one. And it shouldn't suddenly appear at the end to create some excitement, instead it should be slowly weaving itself into a main or sub plot starting from the middle of the book.
  6. The main character is the author. A version of the author is represented in the characters, the world, and the plot. Luck, coincidences, and tension are not the author.
  7. If you have no good ideas for an ending, leave it open. The most frustrating thing about a book is a bad(ly written) ending. Readers want to know what happened to the characters, but sometimes is must be sacrificed. (Also ending should be a twist from #1)
  8. Cut out the 10 years later scene. If the theme of the book isn't time or nostalgia and doesn't make the reader recall an important idea mentioned in the middle of the book, it isn't necessary. No new information at the last moment.

Ideas and Open Plot Elements:

Why?

Please understand that there are edge cases, if these criteria put a really good book you know into the trashcan, good for you: you found a gem. Also, remember that these are specific to (fantasy) novels, the further away a book is from that category, the less accurate my criteria will be.

My main point I am trying to explain is that books have the purpose of presenting the authors ideas or experience, and that anything that is not one of those ideas should be adjusted to be quickly ignored and forgotten by the reader. What goes through the readers mind should be the what the author is trying to convey, a grand finale shouldn't overshadow everything the book was about, it should make the reader recall the journey through the ideas from the first pages until right before the ending.

1

I am not sure what emotions should be associated with a twist created out of thin air. Every time a new character, or a rule in the world is created to save the main character out of a dead end situation, I don't think of luck or the tension, I think about what a disgusting amount of plot armor the author included to deal with his own lack of thought.

A good twist is resolved using Open Plot Elements that were mentioned and explained before in great detail, but the reader forgot about during the raising tension, or even better elements that are used in a creative way to deal with the situation.

A good twist should be like from a detective story, it should give the reader a feeling of inferiority if he forgot those elements existed or couldn't come up with the same solution as the characters, given the same information. But it should also give a feeling of superiority if the reader did in fact come up with the same or similar solution, or remembered the mentioned information.

It is the job of the author to make sure that those feelings are well balanced and are nor to boring nor to complex.

Example of a good (bad because I wrote it) twist:

Tom sprinted out of the forest and into the swamp, his pursuers tight on his tail. The hot summer didn't help; the sweat was blurring the vision. Just what was so important about his father's lighter, that was first and foremost associated with cigarettes and lung cancer? The terrain gave him the advantage, he knew the area and had an easier time navigating. If he could escape, he might be able to get some answers from the antique shop owner. Suddenly he heard shots from behind, perhaps better visibility of the swamp gave his pursuers the confidence for a hit. He hid himself behind a bush. It was a dead end, only a matter of time until he would be found. What could a boy with a lighter and torn clothes possibly do? Tom ripped of his shirt and put it against the lighter, the old device gave a spark. The boy threw the burning shirt towards the chasing men. "There he is! There!" one shouted, but the other interrupted him "Bob, the swamp! The swamp is burning!" With clouds of smoke covering his back Tom made his escape.

Another good example is Odysseus' escape from the cave of the cyclops, it is a bit of a twist, but it only uses elements the reader is aware of.

2

A story should showcase the ideas the author came up with. It shouldn't include "typical scenes" from classic fantasy novels that the reader already knows.

The I described twist can be one of those idea. The ideas that the author includes in the book should be what the reader remembers, not the typical movie battle scenes or qualities possessed by every other protagonist.

Yes, Harry Potter and many other fantasy books are a disaster in terms of plot, but there are ideas represented in them, very great ideas in fact. The greatest part of Harry Potter we all read it for is undoubtedly the hidden world of magic and it's parallels to our real world. The world of wizards has it's flaws, but you have to admit that the scale and quality of the world is incredible. Perhaps multiple fantasy books I read before Harry Potter wore down my ability to be amazed by fantasy worlds, but I remember there was a scene in where Harry's History curriculum is mentioned: and it included "Witch Hunts." I screamed when I read it. This is the kind of idea I want to see in books, a small detail but a careful inclusion of something real into a mountain of made up things.

I see the terrible plot of harry potter not as a downgrade but as missed potential. How much greater could the book have been if the plot was just a little bit more thought out in the big picture.

One easy example of good ideas is Percy Jackson where the Greek Mythology is used for a modern day adventure story. The idea itself is pretty simple, you are already given a solid basis (Greeks did all the work for you), and you need to decide how a modern world would look like if creatures from an ancient religion were present in it.

3

There are some books that waste time describing typical environments or the amazement of characters as they are staring at some piece of architecture stolen right out of a famous movie. The author shouldn't describe parts of the environment that aren't important to the story (unless it sets the mood).

If the author is bad at writing romantic scenes, they should be kept to the minimum or left out entirely. Don't make a book out of what should have been a short story.

Texts should be as long as they need to be. Books shouldn't be inflated.

If I had more time, I would have written it shorter.

Many trilogies are ruined by additional books that are published to get money from the fans and are terrible written disobeying every rule I am describing here.

4

This comes straight out of number 3.

Authors really like to describe scenes that aren't unique to their books, and don't add value to the stories. They just put them in because they like them.

If you stole Gandalf raw out of Hobbit, I promise you, I am imagining an old wizard with a long white beard exactly as you intended it, I don't need a page long description of his character.

I also think that all the sections describing how brave the protagonist is should be left out, all dramatic dialogue between the dying hero and the evil villain usually ends the same way in all books (with a thin air twist).

If it isn't unique, and serves no purpose, it doesn't belong there.

5

By far the biggest failure of Harry Potter is bad plot design. The main point of the plot of the next book is not hinted in the previous book. In every book the name of the villain was new, and the new conflict (eg. the Competition in the 4th book) was never mentioned before that.

At least the name of the villain should have been mentioned in the previous book at least a few times. Harry should have been told repeatedly starting from the first book that his uncle betrayed his family.

Some sort of tales or information about the conflict of the next book should be revealed in the previous one. Otherwise the series just feel disconnected. In Star Wars, it is obvious that there will be a continuation because Darth Vader escapes the Death Star explosion.

6

I am not interested in the plot armor or the luck or intelligence of the protagonist, I want to see the ideas that the author brings to the table. A brave, smart, and strong protagonist gets boring when reading the 10th story about such a person.

The story should reflect something the author wants to convey. Maybe it is the beauty of a sunset after a long day, and if it is about the beauty of nature, I am not to concerned about the opinion or qualities of the characters involved. Eg. Typical explorers using basic explorer knowledge is enough.

The author should show his personality, or the personality of people he knows in the characters. Show his imagination, deep knowledge, and attention to detail in the setup of the world, and his creativity in the plot. (And when I say creativity, I mean good twists)

Things such as luck, coincidences, or tensions usually don't represent the author, instead they are a patchwork that attempts to keep the plot logical. If you are planning to use luck to add a twist, add a bit of tension instead and make everything go according to plan, or at least add a short section section in the first chapter that somehow makes a coincidence more predictable.

7

Why is every ending in every book the boy and the girl kissing, or some dead character suddenly coming back to life to ambush the villain right when the hero is about to die.

The ending is usually a twist, and I already gave a very long description of what good twists look like. Sometimes I am even able to come up with a good twist for the ending, and am very disappointed that the author uses a thin air twist instead.

The final battle shouldn't reveal any new information, all betrayals should happen at before the final battle, otherwise it just gets to chaotic. Characters shouldn't have any unexpected hidden abilities or allies. The grand finale should only have 1 twist (or if it is really long multiple twists in favor of both sides) but the ending twist should be the best one(s) in the entire book, if it isn't that's a grand failure by my standards.

If you are writing a book and you have no good ideas or twists for the ending, you can do 1 of 2 things: leave multiple Open Plot Elements and leave an open ending letting the reader judge how the protagonist could escape the situation using the Open Plot Elements he remembers, or you could just skip the final scene. After increasing the tension in a wild car chase just make the villain's car crash into the ditch solving the entire climax.

8

Authors like to include the 10 years later scenes, but I think they are often a bad addition. Sometimes a new character or conflict is revealed increasing the mysteriousness of the situation, which is not the purpose such scenes have. They are intended to summarize or recall the journey from start to finish.

It is a well known rule that you never add any new information in the very end, but rather make a conclusion to the text. In most cases "a month later" setting where the characters are thinking about everything in hindsight is enough of a summery, and the "X years later" scene is not necessary.

The only cases where such a scene should be present is if the theme has something to do with Time. If the "story repeats itself" theme is the focus, it should be some other person finding some item from or about the original story, and the scene should be similar to a scene from the very beginning.

Other themes that have to do with time are "growing up," "change," and "nostalgia." All of them would probably be somehow similar to the very beginning of the story. Otherwise a "10 years later" scene shouldn't be necessary.

Conclusion

It is sad to see that many authors choose to stamp books that are against every single criterion I see here. I feel like this is also where the phrase "they don't make them anymore" comes from. Creators and publishers put significantly less thought into the things they make, but I hope I am wrong and there are books that bring something new to the table for me to find.

If you think my requirements are quite high, indeed they are. If a book is supposed to be good, it should be perfect to stand out from all the books that were manufactured following well tested recipes.

Now the obvious question is: What are my favorite books? Unfortunately many of these books have become kind of boring after being used as a template. But here they are:

Honorable mentions:

I bet I will come up with a shorter version of my thoughts, and a bunch more stuff to add right after I publish this.

- very qualified book reviewer