What makes you love (or hate) a story?
I've been thinking lately about the way people can view the same thing so differently. The same work can be something one person loathes, another is completely ambivalent toward, and a third loves so much they fall all over themselves to tell everyone how incredible it is.
Maybe it's because I come from an anthropology background, but that is bloody fascinating to me. It's so interesting to think about what it is that leads people to their different subjective views, and even more interesting to think about what the actual "quality" of the work itself is since no one's opinion is more accurate or true than another's.
I've tried to analyze my own preferences and I think it probably goes, in order of what's most important to me in a story or series:
1) characters I connect with
2) character development
3) good plot (bonus points if it's intricate or keeps me guessing)
4) grammar/other editing accuracies
For me, it's about the characters. Period. If I don't like a main character or don't understand/connect with them, it's really hard for me to get into a story, no matter how brilliant the plot or world or writing may be.
I used to think writing style was at the bottom of my list because if I love the characters, I will even read things that are difficult to understand due to being written so poorly-- but I think that wouldn't be accurate if I did. I've since been met with stories that sound like they'll have a good plot but the writing style isn't one I normally gravitate toward and I don't feel a strong enough connection to the characters to carry me through it.
So once more it probably comes back to characters for me.
It's probably about the characters for everyone to some extent, because isn't that why we spend so many hours reading and watching stories about fictional people doing fictional things? But I'd be curious to see if everyone else would put their Must Haves in the same order I do.
Is grammar more important than characters or character development for some people? Do some put plot above all else?
And actually while I'm at it, what kind of character stereotype is your favorite? I've started to realize that I tend to gravitate toward quieter, bookwormy or misunderstood characters often with dark or complex pasts, and often on the sideline.
Maybe it's because I come from an anthropology background, but that is bloody fascinating to me. It's so interesting to think about what it is that leads people to their different subjective views, and even more interesting to think about what the actual "quality" of the work itself is since no one's opinion is more accurate or true than another's.
I've tried to analyze my own preferences and I think it probably goes, in order of what's most important to me in a story or series:
1) characters I connect with
2) character development
3) good plot (bonus points if it's intricate or keeps me guessing)
4) grammar/other editing accuracies
For me, it's about the characters. Period. If I don't like a main character or don't understand/connect with them, it's really hard for me to get into a story, no matter how brilliant the plot or world or writing may be.
I used to think writing style was at the bottom of my list because if I love the characters, I will even read things that are difficult to understand due to being written so poorly-- but I think that wouldn't be accurate if I did. I've since been met with stories that sound like they'll have a good plot but the writing style isn't one I normally gravitate toward and I don't feel a strong enough connection to the characters to carry me through it.
So once more it probably comes back to characters for me.
It's probably about the characters for everyone to some extent, because isn't that why we spend so many hours reading and watching stories about fictional people doing fictional things? But I'd be curious to see if everyone else would put their Must Haves in the same order I do.
Is grammar more important than characters or character development for some people? Do some put plot above all else?
And actually while I'm at it, what kind of character stereotype is your favorite? I've started to realize that I tend to gravitate toward quieter, bookwormy or misunderstood characters often with dark or complex pasts, and often on the sideline.
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I think the more a person reads, the more his opinion and standards change towards books, and the more it is hard to satisfy him. I am having a lot of a hard time finding a good book in Arabic.
I like character development and plot as well, and world building with WONDERFUL~ detail and little bits thrown in here and there, sprinkled for ambience, just gets me so alive and heady. Poetic word style is nice but not something I notice too much other than now and then, I do notice typos though and bad grammar a bit and misplaced punctuation, but USUALLY not enough to get me to put the book down in frustration.For me it's the characters like you Ais, that can make or break the book. I had thrown a book aside because I could NOT believe one character and the group of other characters could NOT see through the villainess' blatantly obvious schemes and ploys.
And I tend to love the badass woman shero (nice name for heroine ;)) that don't give a damn and go after what they want regardless. :) Love the woman characters of Alanna series and other books in the world of Tortal, as well as the women of the Pern series by the original author there.
But for some reason the nice sweet guys get my heart racing. And yet I am in love with my oc character in the works I am currently in the process of slowly writing out and defining for eventual debuted book, the mysterious sharp-eyed analytical and intense hero with a painful past that makes him have all the MORE reason to fight for the underdog, literally at times. And the shero of that would be (hopefully received as I see her) badass and not beholden to any man as well as sassy and giving as good as she got and the one to kick my hero's ass into gear at need.
Enough of my rambling, ehehe!
I mostly agree with Kate and Weasel, though characters I connect with is also my number one. I'll forgive, overlook, or just plain not notice a LOT that would otherwise bother me if I'm engaged with the characters.
Good points :) It's true what Kate said, I suppose it does depend on the context for me as well, but I think even then I end up being super character-driven. I think if I read two books that were identically and excellently done except the characters changed, and in one version I really connected with them and in another I didn't, it would be the difference between addiction and ambivalence for me.
Indigo-- I love bad ass women too :) They're kind of hard to find, sadly.
Weasel-- Actually, I do have to agree that character development isn't always needed, at least not in a one volume story. But if it's a really long ongoing series, it DOES annoy me if there's zero development or progress for a character because I feel like I'm just reading the same thing over and over, and what's the point of that? I could go waste my time doing something else that's at least entertaining. Although I think you could get away with writing a character who never changes if the character started out as a complete mystery to the reader and then back story and quirks and other things were doled out over time, so there's something to wonder about still.
Jess said: "I'll forgive, overlook, or just plain not notice a LOT that would otherwise bother me if I'm engaged with the characters."
Me too. I'll fill in the blanks or come up with reasons for things that may or may not hold up to scrutiny if only I really like the characters.
Nour said: "I think the more a person reads, the more his opinion and standards change towards books, and the more it is hard to satisfy him."
Yeah, that's true. Honestly, I think that's why I haven't been reading many books lately. Fiction books have been largely disappointing me of late, and the few I've read that have interested me at all are fun while I'm reading them but nothing that sticks with me a week or two after I put it down.
When I was a kid-- and this is sadly true, since my mom told me it recently-- when my siblings and I got in trouble my parents would take away what was most important to us. It was money and baseball cards for my brother, but for me I wasn't allowed to go the library. I used to actually get in trouble in the summers because my dad would find me staying up reading all night, and when I went to the library I would check out 14 books at a time and have them back right away.
I always used to read like mad, but in the last several years I just... can't get into anything. It's probably why I've been straying toward manga, anime, and tv shows more because they're visual, so if I'm disappointed by anything at least I can look at something pretty or interesting.
That's what got me thinking about this topic, after talking to someone who hated an anime I loved.
I wish something would make me a fan again :(
Ais wrote: "Yeah, that's true. Honestly, I think that's why I haven't been reading many books lately. Fiction books have been largely disappointing me of late, and the few I've read that have interested me at all are fun while I'm reading them but nothing that sticks with me a week or two after I put it down. "
I hate that. I've gone through multi-year periods where I didn't read much at all because I was so dissatisfied with the fiction I was reading, and non-fic will only hold my attention for so long. Generally I find some other outlet. The last time it happened I relandscaped the whole 1/2 acre around the house. It was fun and took me about 3 years to get it where I wanted it. Then I discovered m/m and then slash which has kept me entertained for 3 or 4 years, but I think that's about over....I sense another mega-yard project coming up.
I hate that. I've gone through multi-year periods where I didn't read much at all because I was so dissatisfied with the fiction I was reading, and non-fic will only hold my attention for so long. Generally I find some other outlet. The last time it happened I relandscaped the whole 1/2 acre around the house. It was fun and took me about 3 years to get it where I wanted it. Then I discovered m/m and then slash which has kept me entertained for 3 or 4 years, but I think that's about over....I sense another mega-yard project coming up.
LOL if only I became as constructive as you do when you lose your reading love... I just veg out on shows and manga XD But yeah, it's starting to depress me, auuugh. I keep asking people for recommendations and I get them, but then when I try to pick it up I just.... can't. Even books I've been told I will love, I just can't read. I end up going for the books that look like they'll be mindless because I guess then my expectations are lower. I don't know how many years this has been going on for me but it's been a damn long time and it's getting really tiresome.Non-fiction isn't my favorite, either-- I like it for researching but unless it's a Simon Singh book, I can't focus on it for just reading for fun, either. I wish he'd release another book. Maybe that could get me out of my rut.
Or maybe I should take up some other hobby like you.
If you end up going in a direction like tv shows and manga instead of yard projects, let me know if I can help out with recommendations or discussions ;)
I keep asking people for recommendations and I get them, but then when I try to pick it up I just.... can't. Even books I've been told I will love, I just can't read. I end up going for the books that look like they'll be mindless because I guess then my expectations are lower. I don't know how many years this has been going on for me but it's been a damn long time and it's getting really tiresome.That's happened to me a few times and I HATE IT!!!! Thankfully, for me it's usually been just weeks or months. The thought of years terrifies me.
What's (usually) jump-started me again is to reread old favorites. Usually sci-fi/fantasy, which was my original genre. A few times I've then gone on to read new-to-me books in the genre for a while, and then gotten my general reading mojo back. But hey, if I'm reading, I'm happy. :)
Ais, I hope you find something soon that works for you! Though picking up a productive new hobby hardly sounds like a bad thing.
Kate, don't leave us! *clings to Kate's ankles*
I'll think on this post a bit, but more or less I agree with Kate's first comment. Editing is a huge pet peeve, but moreso content editing than a few random typos. Even books that are too long I can enjoy if the characters intrique me.That being said: Ais have you tried any Mary Roach? She's nonfiction, but I think she writes in a really entertaining style. I loved Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers.
Also maybe switch it up. I read Gillian Flynn and I love her, but she's hit or miss for people. You could read YA or even something classic like Agatha Christie which is fun, but you don't have to think very hard. Hell even Sue Grafton. You could also look at the teen/childrens' summer reading lists and groupings in bookstores. Those are usually fairly interesting.
Jess -- it's funny, I do also tend to fall back on old favorites, but for me somehow I end up falling into old fandoms instead of rereading old books. So I end up rereading manga series I love (I've reread Yotsuba&! and Totally Captivated recently) or putzing around old fandoms. But I HAVE been curious about reading old books I loved as a teenager because I recently got a box of old books that had been stored away for a long time. Maybe that could jumpstart my love of sci-fi/fantasy again, too :)Jenn -- LOL you know me so well. I love nonfiction based on forensics and cadavers. (Which is weird since I'm a vegetarian) Stiff sounds awesome, ngl. I need to find that! Thanks for the recommendation!
I think you're both right that I do need to switch it up. Lately I've been kind of wanting to gravitate toward YA so I might check that out. I just realized I don't think I've ever read Agatha Christie...
Funny, I'm also a vegetarian but have been meaning to read Stiff. And Bonk, by the same author. :)Rereading favorite books from when I was a teenager has been the closest thing to guaranteed success I've found. What a treasure trove that box of books is!
If you want a YA rec (and can find it!) I remember reading Walk Through Cold Fire as a teenager and being blown away by it. All the reviews here and on Amazon seem to love it as much as I remember.
Thanks, Jess! I put it on my list :) lol I'll add Bonk too. I love nonfiction books that are written in an entertaining way-- that's why I like Simon Singh's books so much. It's fun to read AND you're learning all sorts of interesting things. Have you read anything by Jefferson Bass (the fiction series based on real life forensics by two different people who melded their names into one) or William Bass (a world-renowned forensic anthropologist) like Death's Acre?That's funny that we both gravitate to those topics despite being vegetarian ;)
It's fun to read AND you're learning all sorts of interesting things.Yes, this. I'm not sure I'd say I gravitate to those sort of books, I just love nonfiction books written like novels. One I was just reminded of recently that I remember loving is The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary.
Also, if you have any interest in probability at all (and maybe even if you don't), Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk and The Lady Tasting Tea: How Statistics Revolutionized Science in the Twentieth Century were awesome.
I could keep going... :)
Awesome, thank you! Those all sound really interesting. I keep a list of books to look for at used bookstores so I'm always happy to add more. I got all these on my list :)I also don't gravitate to nonfiction books in and of themselves-- a lot of times I find them to be too tedious to read-- but if they're written like novels, I tend to love them. It's probably why Mythbusters is one of my favorite shows ever.
Feel free to throw more nonfiction-like-novel recs my way since weirdly enough I'm probably most likely to read those before any of the fiction books I have waiting. Also, if you haven't read them yet, I definitely recommend The Code Book and Big Bang. They're both great. Fermat's Enigma managed to get me so intrigued by mathematics that I actually went out and bought One Two Three Infinity right away, although I never got far into it before I got distracted.
While we're on the topic of nonfiction, I also remember liking Mountains Beyond Mountains (and Tracy Kidder in general), Memory's Ghost, and Rape of the Mind (interesting but not very novel-like) although it's been years since I've read any of them. By the way, because it's so old, you can find Rape of the Mind for free online.
Oh and I recently read Devil in the White City and liked it. I thought it was really interesting how it interwove two stories. The funny thing is, I remember REALLY liking it but just now I saw I'd only given it 3 stars. But I also apparently didn't write a review so I don't remember WHY I gave it 3 stars instead of more. Good job, self.
lol side note, I could have SWORN I wrote a review somewhere of Devil in the White City so I was checking my livejournal for that, and ran across this entry from 2 am on July 21, 2010. I was amused by the footnote so left that in too:Today, I sat outside and read Death's Acre for... I'm not sure. An hour? 1 1/3** hours? I didn't keep track of time, but it was really relaxing and pretty damn awesome, and also kind of funny that I was all content and intrigued and relaxed since the book is all "AND THE BODY'S FACE WAS ROTTED OFF WHICH WAS SWEET BECAUSE THEN I COULD TELL SHE WAS 30-34 YEARS OLD..."
**I love how in my tiredness I typed 1 1/3 instead of 1 1/2. 1 1/3 seems like a bizarre, arbitrary amount of time to quantify. YES IT WAS EITHER 60 MINUTES, OR PRECISELY 80 MINUTES BUT NOT TO BE CONFUSED WITH 90 MINUTES. But since I was amused by the typo I left it.
Thanks for the recs, I'll keep an eye out for them! I also keep a list to look for at used bookstores, though recently I've gotten more into reading ebooks (and amazed by how many I can find at a library).You want more recs? I can give you more recs! I read and loved Fermat's Enigma around the same time as the stats books - I was Minoring in Statistics at the time. I also liked The Hole in the Universe, I remember reading it on some flight.
Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid is one of my if-I-were-stuck-on-a-desert-island books, because I think it has so many layers it could keep me entertained for years even if I could read nothing else. It's not exactly novel-like, but it's fascinating.
I started The Measure of All Things: The Seven-Year Odyssey and Hidden Error That Transformed the World years ago and was enjoying it. I don't know why I never finished it, but I still have it bookmarked, intending to get back to it at some point. I don't remember how novel-like it was or wasn't, though.
The Mother Tongue: English and How It Got That Way was entertaining. I also enjoyed The Genius of Language: Fifteen Writers Reflect on Their Mother Tongue.
I loved To Engineer Is Human: The Role of Failure in Successful Design, and I think I read and loved a few other books by him. His style tends to be entertaining.
Also, I LOVE your footnote! =D
Sweet! Thank you! I just added them all :)I just remembered that my friend really likes The Omnivore's Dilemma (and I swear, finds a way to reference it like 5 times a day lol) but I haven't yet read it.
Also, if you end up wanting to veer toward historical fiction at any point-- and also for you, Indigo, when you were talking about bad ass women-- I just stumbled upon my 2005 review of The Twentieth Wife and The Feast of Roses. I can't say whether I would feel the same about the books if I were to read them now, since it's been so long, but apparently 8 years ago I really enjoyed them.
Here's what I'd written -- contains a few minor spoilers, a spot of rambling, and a criminal lack of capitalization ;P
(view spoiler)
Yeah, I have a few Michael Pollan books I've been meaning to get to, and that's one of them. I remember reading Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal years ago and thinking that if I weren't already a vegetarian, that book might've made me one.I already added The Twentieth Wife because I saw it in my feed and thought it looked good. I used to read a lot of historical fiction. Not so much in recent years, but it might be time to be getting back to it. :)
Oh yeah I forgot to say-- especially thank you for the language recs! I LOVE languages. I'm totally a nerd for them. I actually almost went for a linguistics major in college but didn't mostly because of the way it was done at my school, and because I'm more interested in the anthropological side of language as it relates to culture than I am the grammatical side of languages, although I do enjoy comparing the way languages function. Like for instance, when we were learning Japanese, they wouldn't teach us the word for "no" or "hate" for a long time, because culturally speaking it's generally considered rude to just be like NO! or THIS SUCKS! to things. So what they taught us was if, for example, someone had given me food I hated or they were wearing something god-awful and asked for my opinion or any situation in which I want to tell someone that whatever they're doing or asking me about isn't good, rather than outright saying that you were supposed to say, "Sore wa chotto...." and trail off, possibly screwing up you face a bit, and holding your hand flat out in front of you and rocking it back and forth. That translates to "it's a little...."
And that's it. You don't even say "I'm not a fan", you just say "it's a little...." and make the "so-so" sign with your hand. That was fascinating to me at the time of learning it.
Jess wrote: "Yeah, I have a few Michael Pollan books I've been meaning to get to, and that's one of them. I remember reading Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal years ago and thinking that ..."Fast Food Nation sounds really familiar... I think I saw the documentary for that. I should check out the book or double check if I saw the documentary. I was on a kick for a while of watching food-related documentaries (including agriculture) and I saw some awesome ones, and other ones that were decent or just okay, but of course I watched them in a freaking marathon and can't remember titles or individual plots lol They were basically all saying the same thing-- the American food industry is screwed, and so are you for eating it.
Oh. Hell. I love language so much, I've been working toward a PhD in the psychology of language. You want language recs? Hoo boy! I stuck with the ones that were more novel-like, but I got TONS more I can mention if you want.I love your Japanese example, and that's exactly the sort of thing that got me so fascinated in the first place!
Since you specifically mention the anthropological side of language, you might like
Genes, Peoples, and Languages. I remember enjoying that one. I haven't read this one yet, but I picked it up at a used bookstore because it looked good: Gesture and the Nature of Language.
I remember Growing Up with Two Languages: A Practical Guide as a fun read. I loaned it at one point to a friend interested in language and bilingualism, but not involved in any academic study of it. He loved it, fwiw.
Another I picked up at a library book sale but haven't yet read is Grooming, Gossip, and the Evolution of Language. If you're particularly interested in the anthropological side of things, that might be of interest to you.
Another novel-like one I forgot to mention is The Power of Babel: A Natural History of Language, and I remember reading and loving a few others of his as well.
I also have a bunch of more academic ones, if you want to get more technical and less novel-like about it.
Ais wrote: "They were basically all saying the same thing-- the American food industry is screwed, and so are you for eating it."Yeah, that's pretty much my take-away message from the books I've read and documentaries I've seen on the subject. :(
Oh! Another novel-like nonfiction book I remember loving is The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference. It's the only Gladwell book that every scientist I know loved and agreed with. When Blink came out, every scientist I knew loved it but said variations of, "It was great, and well-researched, except in my area ." After hearing that enough times, from enough people in enough different areas, I figured the whole book was pretty much discredited.
Gladwell is a good writer, who writes about interesting topics in entertaining ways, but he's not a scientist and clearly doesn't really understand science. So, for the most part, I think his books should be read with a giant shaker of salt. But (maybe because it was his first?) The Tipping Point seemed to be solid, as well as highly entertaining.
A related sort of book that I also found novel-like in its entertainment value was Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die. And Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts was awesome. I really liked Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions and The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable too.
Psychology of language?? I didn't even know such a study existed. That sounds awesome o_O What would you do with a PhD in that? Are there jobs out there that it could work toward, I'm assuming including teaching? I ask because the topic sounds like pretty much exactly what I wanted to do but I didn't know you COULD do that.Thanks for the other recs too! I have a huge list now for the next time I'm at a bookstore (hopefully this weekend). :D
Have you read any Derrida? I used to love reading his books.
Teaching (and research) is probably the primary job one does with a PhD in it. But there are also things like working with companies like Google on Search. What search terms people use, and what they really mean, and what to show them depending on what they entered... that's all about the psychology of language.So there are tons of artificial intelligence-related jobs. And human factors design jobs, because how people interact with interfaces is part of it too. Things like, should it be a male voice or a female voice in your car telling you to fasten your seatbelt? What words, exactly, should such a voice use for each of the commands/suggestions?
I discovered it as a career possibility when I took Psycholinguistics as an undergrad. Like you, I'd had no idea such a thing existed until then. I had a lousy teacher but a great textbook, so eventually I stopped going to class and just read the book. My graduate advisor has a copy of it, and said it's one of the best in the field, so I got lucky with that.
The book is Psychology of Language, and the particular edition we were discussing was the fourth. With a fifth out now, it looks like you can actually get a used copy of the fourth in good condition pretty cheaply on Amazon, if you're interested. It definitely doesn't read like a novel, but would give you a better idea of the sort of research out there and whether you might want to go in depth with any of it.
From what you've said, I suspect you might find Lera Boroditsky's research as fascinating as I do. Others who come readily to mind (because I looked into studying with all of them, lol) that I think might also be of interest to you are Boaz Keysar, Ray Gibbs, Natasha Tokowicz... and many others, but that's who's off the top of my head.
Jenn wrote: "Have you read any Derrida? I used to love reading his books."I don't think I have. What do you recommend?
Awesome, thank you Jess! I heart you <3And I'm also curious about any recs for Derrida, Jenn :)
Writing and Difference, Dissemination, Of Grammatology. Read them all for my degree. In fact, everyone always thinks my English degree focus was Literature or Education lol, but it wasn't. I think I took 2 Eng lit classes my entire college span. My English degree is in Rhetoric, Theory, Culture, and Writing. So, yeah...I had to read lots of Derrida. You kind of either love him or hate. For instance, he talks a lot about the space between words on the page and the idea of the 'book'.
Ais, you're welcome! I hope I didn't toss more at you than you wanted. If you like that though and want more, feel free to ask. I've - obviously - spent a fair bit of time researching this. :)Jenn, thanks for the recs!
lol no you didn't-- it's good to have a list so I can check when I'm at various bookstores. Thanks for the Derrida recs too, Jenn!
Because I'm not a one size fits all kind of reader. If I'm reading an action thriller, then yes the characters have to be good, but the plot is much more important; whether it hangs together, makes sense, no logic holes, unexpected twists and surprises. If I'm reading something character based like romance, then the characters and their story arc is where almost all of my attention is. And I still want a plot, only it's secondary.
And then there's stuff that I read just because, and sometimes the writing is enough to carry everything while I forgive both plot and character flaws (Harper Fox is a great example in m/m).
So in fiction, I'd say it goes something like this: plot and/or character on kind of equal footing depending, then the storytelling which is a nebulous way of lumping together pacing/structure/balance/flow, then good writing (because I can forgive a lot if the story telling is good), then grammar and proof reading.