Story Notes

[itsallovernow]

I've been thinking, as I often do, about what works for me in a story - be it literature, television, movies, fic, etc. What pulls me in and makes me stay.

And yes, the visual medium offers different possibilities, but I approach story the same way regardless of medium, and I think the same elements draw me in.

* I am a sucker for character over story, but I need the story to spill onto the characters, I need for them to have drive and purpose, even if that purpose is survival, even if it comes from outside.

* Change and development. I don't care if they move backwards, forwards or sideways, I need the characters to change, to react to their circumstances and environments and abosrb those changes. If they do remain stagnant, I need it to be for a reason.

* Family and forged connections. Nothing makes me happier than loyalty and family created from whole cloth, created out of choice.

* Women. I need the stories I engage in to have compelling women and girls. This is not true for everyone. This is absolutely true for me.

* Consequences. I want my stories to have consequences. Good, bad, ugly, funny, I need actions to have repurcussions, and I need the reset button to be used sparringly. I watch genre, I value the reset button. I also value the "Holy Shit, how are we going to deal with the fallout?"

* Words. I really, really like my characters to love words, to use them richly and well. (This is not as disingenuous as it sounds).

* Intelligence, of all sorts. I like intelligence to be valued, appreciated, even made fun of. That being said, I hate when smart characters do stupid things as a plot device. I love it when smart characters do stupid things because it's in character.

* I need to be able to laugh as I'm crying. BSG stopped working for me because there was absolutely no humor left in it. I'd have overlooked any number of things if I'd been able to find even a moment or two of joy. And I couldn't. So I stopped watching. It's why Doctor Who, despite hysterically silly storylines and terrible special effects works for me.

That's the beginning of my list, and I can offer up specific examples, but what elements do you crave, do you find pinging your radar again and again when it comes to story? I know for a lot of you, the slash/subtext draw is large, the sibling bond, the us against the world, so come on in and share. Feel free to illustrate with examples!!

Comments

[kerlin.livejournal.com]

I need the subtext. I am a pathetically hopeless romantic in fiction. (Oddly, in real life I often couldn't care less. I am a horrible person...) I need the Boy and the Girl and the longing. Bonus points if it's vaguely self-destructive and world-ending in ways that make sense, not ways that were manufactured just for the emo of it all. I'll do fluffy as well but I need them to destroy and save each other.

Everything else you mentioned is what elevates the show for me and contributes to my enjoyment, but the 'ship is what hooks me and what really sends me into stratospheric levels of love.

[thassalia.livejournal.com]

Oh god yes, the longing for something, the really bad decisions made in the face of that longing. I really, really love that. And yeah, when I can connect with a story between two people, that will draw me in every time.

[fancyfedora.livejournal.com]

I need humor. Not sitcom-type humor, but dry or sarcastic humor. It also must tell a good story, though plot isn't always necessary. Snappy dialogue is essential. Flow is essential. It must have at least a couple of actors who can actually act. There must be good chemistry between the actors.

Above all else, I need logic. It doesn't have to be scientific logic, necessarily, but there must be logic. All events and occurrences need to make sense, at least on some rational level that doesn't involve too much reaching. Contextual.

Cleverness is what really hooks me into a show. Either that or cheesy badness that's so bad that it's awesomely bad.

A hottie is helpful, but only so long as they're not there just because they're a hottie.

[thassalia.livejournal.com]

Yeah - the logic doesn't have to be real-time logic, but it does have to be mostly logical within the world and framework of the show.

[midnightsjane.livejournal.com]

I agree with you on all counts, although I'm still loving BSG.
I'm watching Farscape right now (I bought the whole series on DVD), and I am so in love with this show, for all of the reasons you list. I love, love John and Aeryn. Aeryn is one of my most favourite women in fic.
I demand that the women in fic be strong characters; not perfect, not always nice, but aware of who they are, or at least on the road to learning who they are. I love mature relationships, with problems that the characters work hard to fix, and a little angst thrown in is always a good thing.

[thassalia.livejournal.com]

Farscape is my all time favorite story, flaws and all. It hits all my kinks, pushes all my buttons.

I have other shows that I dearly love, that make me giddy and weepy and ridiculously joyful, but FS is still my baby. And yeah.

[vee-fic.livejournal.com]

One of the reasons I have tended to wander in the Omniscient Narrator direction is that I was writing characters who weren't as articulate (read: full of overwrought imagery) as I was myself. So, yeah. Words = important.

It's very weird, constraining my vocabulary into the narrow confines of not-word characters. There is only so much symbolic meaning that can be crammed into "cool" before the whole thing falls over in a heap.

[thassalia.livejournal.com]

I have a very similar issue with overwraught imagery:) But one of the things I love about writing fic is the ability to adobt both vocabulary and speech patterns, to follow the articulation of the characters/actors and try to infuse the same depth and light and layers of meaning by using just words and not nuance:)

There is only so much symbolic meaning that can be crammed into "cool" before the whole thing falls over in a heap.

Hee - but it bears a lot of weight first:)

[kernezelda]

In all the the years that I've been reading, it's become clear that what I find most compelling are relationships, whether natural or forged, that are about power struggles, typically of a hero against an overwhelming foe, or two forces so balanced that only death or utter defeat can break the tie, or some unexpected other element that allows them to coexist.

Enemies bonded to one another through destiny, the yin and yang of connection and hatred and familiarity.

Lust for possession that can't be satisfied by possession, and only grows stronger. Possession to the point of destruction.

Breaking under pressure.

There have been a good many books that fill this need for me, an example being the novel A Fall of Princes in Judith Tarr's Avaryan Rising series, with two enemy princes drawn together by fate, and who must find a way to co-exist that won't destroy either of them.

There are Sondra Marshak and Myrna Culbreath's Star Trek novels, specifically Price of the Phoenix and Fate of the Phoenix, with Kirk opposing an unopposable figure to his last breath, and beyond.

Another novel that really, really, really satisfies me on so very many levels is C. S. Friedman's In Conquest Born. The opposition of stellar empires forms a backdrop for two enemies who desire each other's destruction to the point that their relationship becomes a thing complete in itself, an art they work each upon the other, creating an enemy even stronger, finer and more worthy of conquest. K'airth-v'sa, mate of the private war.

This hits so many chords with me, and I see echoes of it in Avon and Servalan's relationship on Blake's 7, that mutual attraction even though he knows better, and Scorpius' and John's connection in Farscape. It's not the same, of course, because John isn't Scorpius' primary focus, and Scorpius isn't John's, but it's close enough for me, a bond that draws them intensely to each other past all reason and knowledge to the contrary.

It's that primal force I crave, power to power, dominance and defiance, and to paraphrase, it makes me hot, makes me hard, makes me want to dig ever deeper into what lies between them, build up its significance even more to get my dose of pure burning fire, scorched earth where their battles rage.

And the victory of one over the other is so, so sweet, like honey on the tongue and a sigh of release, breath held too long before sucking in pure oxygen that makes you light-headed and giddy.

That's probably more than you wanted to know, but my particular driving urge is apparent, I think, in the fics I write, and so this probably isn't all that surprising, either.

:)

[thassalia.livejournal.com]

I find that absolutely fascinating, especially to see it verbalized:) It's a very different element of relationships than the one's that attract me, but I also appreciate the power play of two equals. I am not a fan of the mentor/student relationship unless it evolves into equals, so I can see elements of the attraction of enemies, even though I'm more interested in what draws people together who like and then love each other:)

Thanks for sharing this!! It was fascinating!

[apathocles.livejournal.com]

The two things I almost always look for are characters and non-sexual relationships (the two characters can be shagging each other through the floorboards, and that's fine, but that's not the part of the relationship I'm focusing on). I don't care what kind of relationships we're talking about -- I find the whole damned range intriguing, from enemies to siblings to best friends (God, I love buddyfic) -- but I want to see people interact in interesting, revealing, and believable ways. I want to learn something new, whether about both characters or just one.

Character studies, man. Nothing quite like 'em. *g*

There are other things, of course, and you've listed most of them already. But characterisations and relationships that teach me something new about the characters? Oh, hell yes.

Beyond that... I guess the things I look for most are humour, intriguing plots, and language. I'll read pretty much anything, though. ;)

[kernezelda]

But will you write Spider-man & Sikozu? No, you will not. *sniff*

[apathocles.livejournal.com]

Hey, I could write Spidey and Sikozu. If, y'know, I wanted to get fired from my job and not be able to graduate due to unfinished grad project.

It's POSSIBLE that I'll consider it in a month or two's time. *twitch*

[kernezelda]

*solemnly* When you write for me, I shall write for you. Mind you, I've written Ebenezer Scrooge/Grinch for you, so you can't expect that degree of *off* again.

[thassalia.livejournal.com]

I find the whole damned range intriguing, from enemies to siblings to best friends (God, I love buddyfic) -- but I want to see people interact in interesting, revealing, and believable ways. I want to learn something new, whether about both characters or just one. Agreed, but I think the sexual relationships can't be dismissed either. People relate to each other frequently through and around sex - having it, not having it, wanting to and refraining, wanting to and not refraining, doing so and regretting it later.(Although I agree that for it to be the only thing that's discussed can be tedious).

But yeah, character relationships, and I totally agree on the love of buddy-fic, of two people who are friends and what that intimacy means:)

[leadensky.livejournal.com]

For me, I want characters with a purpose and characters with joy. BSG gets me on the first one so strongly that I keep watching even though there's not been a lot of the second, here lately.

Loyality - the Russian sort that finds heart-ease in "let us go die on the approaches to the City as our forfathers did before us" - that gets me every damn time. It's nice if they win. It's imperative that they try.

I'm less enthusastic about "found" families than I am with repeated demonstrations of *chosen* family bonds - by this I mean the "I could walk out, part of me wants very badly to walk out, but my place is here and so I stay". That's a greater thing, I think - to not have the choice, but to make it yourself. For me, Adama and Lee are a prime example of this.

I don't need "compelling women." I loved Master & Commander, for example. I do insist that the women in the story be actors on their own - and in this case, I put "choosing to follow the hero" as a self-determined act.

I need the science to not be stupid. I would like the show to appreciate slow change as change, and, as you say, to show the results of bad choices. (And the bad results of good choices, 'cause there ain't no free lunch.)

I don't do humor well, and I'm oversensitive to people being made fools of.

And yeah, "you and me against the world" - that too.

- hg

[thassalia.livejournal.com]

And yeah, "you and me against the world" - that too. This is always a killer, always something that grabs me. Those moments of, "There will be consequences by I will come stand by you and we will meet those consequences together."

More and more, I find that I really do need women to be involved in the story in order to honestly engage me. There are a lot of factors driving that, personal preference not the smallest of them, but I will eventually check out if there are no women in the story. (And oy, I saw Master and Commander once, and it was very nice, and I was sitting far too close to the screen and mostly wanted it to be done with so I wouldn't feel a sea:)

And yeah, I love the idea of purpose, of characters infused with purpose - whether internally or externally. First season BSG totally met that need for me, second season, the lack of joy robbed me of my own enjoyment. But, again, personal perspective.

I don't do humor well, and I'm oversensitive to people being made fools of I hate seeing characters (or people) for that matter being embarrassed, being made fun of or made fools of. Hate it in the can't watch it kind of way. That being said, dry, sharp humor and the occasional pratfall goes a long, long way with me:)