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What makes a story interesting/boring
I know this seems like a brain dead question first, but from everything I've seen and read, peoples' opinions on this vary WILDLY, so I figure I should get a sizable sample, and it might as well be you guys, so here goes:
If you were writing a story, what would be your idea of keeping it interesting? Inversely, what do you think makes a story boring?
Comments
Basically the original content matters less than how its written. I know I've seen a fair share of cool ideas run to the ground by poor prose.
I do agree that presentation and prose matter quite a lot, really. If your characters and your narrator are not readable or entertaining, then you simply won't continue reading the story, but I think people underestimate the value of a good structure in a story.
Also, how do your favourite series continue to latch on to your interest? Do they seem exciting right from the get-go, or gradually build up to be interesting as you follow it? Is the premise what grabs your attention? If not, what is?
Are you speaking of stories in general, or just novels?
normally, the premise itself doesn't call my attention, but the attention paid to the upholding of what the premise means.
It also really depends on what the series is. For example, I forgive inconcistencies and silliness from a Batman story because it's Batman. There've been thousands of writers behind the man and each of them has brought different facts, stories, backgrounds and so on the Batmythos. It works because you forgive a little bit of the hoops that each writer has to jump in order to make a story work, and it also works because the writers don't break the main rules of the game.
I think that's essentially it. Each series has a core set of rules that must not be broken (Batman can't use guns, for example) unless the circumnstaces are really special and meaningful.
Or to look at a less superhero-y example, let's look at Harry Potter. The core rule is that each book is about Harry spending a year in hogwarts and learning, but in the seven book, Harry doesn't go to the school. Horrible headmasters were not an excuse during the fifth book and they are not really valid here. What makes it work is simply the fact that harry has finally outgrown Hogwarts and he now needs to actively face the thing that he had been facing since he was eleven: Voldemort.
This works because the core rule of Harry fighting Voldemort in some way is upholded. And so on and so forth.
Stories are so diverse that you cannot lay any concrete ground rules on all of them, but the one fundamental rule of making a story interesting is that you have to make people care. The moment your audience starts questioning or criticizing how the actual author tells the story rather than the events of the story is the moment when a red flag goes up since that's when they realize that the people on stage are just pretending to be other people and the stage is not some great mystical land, but a raised floor with decorations. And if you can't make people forget all that, you've lost their attention. While I wouldn't call The Room uninteresting, it's obvious most people don't care about the actual story since it's so poorly told and Johnny is disturbingly misogynistic for a supposed "Nice Guy".
I'd also give credit for stories breaking the mold in some way, such as by telling a familiar story from a less familiar perspective. An example is "How does it feel to not be the chosen one?", with a famous example of this being Amadeus (all that matters is that Salieri feels that way). I should also mention abstract forms of storytelling in poetry, art, music in which people may not understand the story in concrete terms, but are driven to care by the emotions conveyed. Sometimes, the best stories are in the things that are left unsaid.
All kinds of things make stories interesting.
Maybe it's a new kind of premise.
Maybe it's a formula I've never seen before.
Maybe it's a formula that's slightly different or wildly different to the one I'm used to.
Maybe it's just imagery and ideas that are new to me.
Maybe it's even just a sense of self-awareness.
But none of these "interesting" things can carry a story. That's just the dressing. What does carry a story is the meat, the core of conflict: character interaction, problems, a search for solution, and people just wanting things.
Without invoking in us the desire to care about the situation, a story is rendered worthless.
A note about story hooks and subverting expectations:
I think that some of my recent experiences with animé have been thus: First, I become interested in watching a series because of cute female characters. Then, the series either keeps my attention by actually making me care about the characters as, like, y'know, people, or I become bored with the series.
The first time I got this pattern was Kiddy Grade. I initially thought it was just a silly fanservice series and then suddenly, around episode 11, it got completely serious, the fanservice took a hike (which was nice), and I was treated to high drama involving anti-establishment warfare. (After that arc, the series did yet again something different for the last third of the show, but...whatever.)
A second notable example was Sky Girls. Even though I don't like the show that much. I illustrate the point in this picture--I was once again expecting cheap fanservice, but instead was treated to a story involving a set of really adorable characters--not just the female ones, even. While the show had, like, a far too slow sense for pacing and seemed way too dragged out (and had little notion of cliffhangers), it's still an example of making me care about the characters.
A third example is The iDOLM@STER. Here I was expecting some sort of overly flattering glimpse into the pop idol industry combined with uncomfortable harem romances. Instead, I was treated to thirteen well-characterized personalities whose interactions with each other, with the Producer, and with their circumstances drove the plot--well, not so much the plot, as there wasn't much of a continuous plot to speak of, but more so drove my continued desire to see the characters develop and evolve.
Now, to be honest, the second and third examples are different from the first. The latter two were me coming in with the wrong expectation. Well, The iDOLM@STER did establish a light-hearted atmosphere early on that was subverted by surprisingly deep drama later on, so I guess it kinda counts in the first category.
That said, I still like the first model the most. When you have a story that sets a tone and scope of expectations and then radically subverts it to reveal a greater narrative. Especially if you've started taking a liking to how things are, by the end of the first story arc, and then what you've been taking for granted in the setting and circumstances is suddenly pulled out from under you.
Want more examples of that first model? Great JRPGs frequently have this model. Perhaps the best example is Chrono Trigger, where you start off with a day at the fair. Of course, we all know that this isn't going to be the story, and we all know it involves time travel. Time travel happens, history gets messed up, the heroes put history back in order, and then all is well. But then...
...BAM! What's this? A ruined futuristic world? Why? And then we find out that some crazy shit called Lavos was behind all this. What began as a day at the fair that became a simple explorative time travel story is now an urgent quest to save the world.
Another great, albeit more meta, example is Cave Story. Pixel's introduction to the game simply indicates to the player that it's a game involving jumping-and-shooting platforming action. That's all.
And then you, the player, through the character you control, is dropped (sometimes literally) into a very messy situation with lots of in-depth backstory. By the end of the game, you have felt strong emotional resonance with various characters, some of whom...well, yeah. And your perspective on the setting, the story, and your role changes dramatically in the course of the story.
Best of all, that title screen theme, which sounds kinda "whatever"? Not so innocently "whatever" anymore by the time you hear it in-game.
Case Study time:
I'll confess, I started thinking about all this because I ran into a webcomic poll recently, and I was wondering why the results are the way they were. So if you have ample free time (WHICH I KNOW SOME OF YOU DO) please check out the poll and the two webcomic finalists themselves. I want you to read a few select chapters from each and size them up, and tell me if you think which is more interesting, or both, or neither or whatever.
http://www.comicmix.com/news/2012/04/06/mix-march-madness-2012-webcomics-tournament-finals-gunnerkrigg-court-vs-goblins/
Oh for me, it's clearly no contest.
I mean, on one hand you have a story about a strange school/community built next to a magical forest about a polite little girl who sees the dead, mixing multiple sources of folklore, mythology, and mysticism.
On the other, you have a story about goblin adventurers in a "standard" fantasy world.
Yeah, Gunnerkrigg Court is a blast. It would be super swell if it one day hit the mainstream; it's got the same essential premise as Harry Potter, but blows it completely away with its creativity, intelligence and attention to awesome. There was even a little aside to the Liechtenauer tradition of fencing