What Types of Stories Do I Like?

What kinds of fiction stories do I like to read and write?

I'm drawn to stories with complex, quirky, conflicted characters who are uncertain how to navigate the world around them. Think Raskolnikov in Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment. Or ones, like Skobie in Graeme Greene's The Heart of the Matter, with deeply-held, if misguided, principles that are difficult to square with the the complex and bewildering world around them. Characters that make you shake your head as your reading, but then stick with you long after you put the book down.

I'm also partial to ambiguity, rather than neatly wrapped-up stories. In life, we we don't know how it will all turn out, so why should we assume that the narrator is omniscient? I have no problem if a story ends without a clear resolution, if that's what fits the story. It leaves the reader more to think about and has a greater texture of realism.

Finally, I love stories where the action takes place largely in the characters' heads.