How to Write a Good Story

Strange Horizons: Stories we've seen too often (II)

Part two of the list :D

6. Technology and/or modern life turn out to be soulless.

a. Office life turns out to be soul-deadening, literally or metaphorically.

b. All technology is shown to be soulless; in contrast, anything "natural" is by definition good. For example, living in a weather-controlled environment is bad, because it's artificial, while dying of pneumonia is good, because it's natural.

c. The future is utopian and is considered by some or many to be perfect, but perfection turns out to be boring and stagnant and soul-deadening; it turns out that only through imperfection, pain, misery, and nature can life actually be good.

d. In the future, all learning is soulless and electronic, until kid is exposed to ancient wisdom in the form of a book.

e. In the future, everything is soulless and electronic, until protagonist (usually a kid) is exposed to ancient wisdom in the form of a wise old person who's lived a non-electronic life.

7. Protagonist is a bad person. [We don't object to this in a story; we merely object to it being the main point of the plot.]

a. Bad person is told they'll get the reward that they "deserve," which ends up being something bad.

b. Terrorists (especially Osama bin Laden) discover that horrible things happen to them in the afterlife (or otherwise get their comeuppance).

c. Protagonist is portrayed as really awful, but that portrayal is merely a setup for the ending, in which they see the error of their ways and are redeemed. (But reading about the awfulness is so awful that we never get to the end to see the redemption.)

8. A place is described, with no plot or characters.

9. A "surprise" twist ending occurs. [Note that we do like endings that we didn't expect, as long as they derive naturally from character action. But note, too, that we've seen a lot of twist endings, and we find most of them to be pretty predictable, even the ones not on this list.]

a. The characters' actions are described in a way meant to fool the reader into thinking they're humans, but in the end it turns out they're not humans, as would have been obvious to anyone looking at them.

b. Creatures are described as "vermin" or "pests" or "monsters," but in the end it turns out they're humans.

c. The author conceals some essential piece of information from the reader that would be obvious if the reader were present at the scene, and then suddenly reveals that information at the end of the story. [This can be done well, but rarely is.]

d. Person is floating in a formless void; in the end, they're born.

e. Person uses time travel to achieve some particular result, but in the end something unexpected happens that thwarts their plan.

f. The main point of the story is for the author to metaphorically tell the reader, "Ha, ha, I tricked you! You thought one thing was going on, but it was really something else! You sure are dumb!"

g. A mysteriously-named Event is about to happen ("Today was the day Jimmy would have to report for The Procedure"), but the nature of the Event isn't revealed until the end of the story, when it turns out to involve death or other unpleasantness. [Several classic sf stories use this approach, which is one reason we're tired of seeing it. Another reason is that we can usually guess the twist well ahead of time, which makes the mysteriousness annoying.]