What Makes a Good Story

What makes a good story?

A story can take many approaches, but the key elements of a good story must remain consistent. An entertaining storyline, an interesting cast of characters, and the perfect setting set the backdrop to a writer's masterpiece. As paint and canvas is important to a painter, a great storyline, interesting characters, and these elements are crucial to an author's story as he puts his creative ability to the test with paper and pen.

An entertaining storyline is one that can captivate the reader within the first couple sentences, paragraphs or pages. If a writer is unable to provide that excitement or intrigue early on, the interest of the reader may wane and soon their thoughts have wandered from the words on the pages and wafted to the lingering duties of daily life. How boring and unappealing. In her short story, “Royal Beatings”, author Alice Munro, displayed a good example of capturing the reader's attention immediately. “Royal beating. That was Flo's promise. You are going to get one Royal Beating”. Those words spurred the reader to want more and soon the reader was curious about who Flo was, and who was going to get the beating. The beginning of that story provided suspense and interest and the reader was left wanting more. Soon thoughts and feelings begin to stir inside about their own moral conscious and values.

An interesting character or set of characters is crucial to the makings of a good story. Readers want to understand, feel and be able to identify with the character and what they are going through. The author’s ability to describe a character’s appearance and personality traits whether it be character flaws or attributes, the reader is drawn into the character’s life as if they were connected on some level. One aspect of a story that is not appealing is too many characters. Too many characters described too quickly in the story creates confusion as the mind is trying to learn multiple facts and personality...