Tell me if this sounds familiar to any of you.
Let's say that there's a story on wattpad that caught your eye, and so you decided to give it a shot in hopes that what you'd be reading is something worthwhile.
The chapters and scenes that you're introduced to the story with have been less than decent, but you continue onward anyways until the first three chapters or so. And despite all the events the story presents you with, you just can't seem to care about what happens.
Makarov witnesses his parents' death at the hands of loan-sharks, remaining hidden inside of a closet, clinging onto the dead corpse of his younger brother in the first or second chapter, but its impact is less than the author had intended, or—
Max is revealed to be in an abusive relationship, and is attempting to run away from her past life in chapter 5, or—
Unnamed protagonist A enters an adrenaline inducing life-or-death action scene where a single mistake could mean death. But you just can't seem to care. I'm sure you know what I'm talking about.
Perhaps it's the writing. Perhaps the author simply isn't skilled enough to pull off something like that so early on in the story. But generally speaking, most of the time, it boils down to characterization.
Personally, to me, as both a writer and a roleplayer, the most important facet of a story are the characters.
Whenever you attempt to recall a story, generally speaking, the characters with the strongest characterization and impressions tend to be recalled as well.
—And make no mistake, you can have the most intricate, engaging plot-line in history, the most inventive setting, world-building, and intriguing events in your narrative. However, it won't mean a thing if your characters are the equivalent of cardboard cutouts that you'd find in an isle at the supermarket.
The entertainment, impact, and power of a story lies in characterization and how those characters respond to the situations they're put in. Meaning if you have weak characterization, chances are you'll also end up with a weak story.
In fact, some of my most favorite pieces of entertainment are literally of characters sitting at a table in a room, doing absolutely nothing but exchanging banter. They manage to be extremely entertaining, and pull it off so flawlessly due to the raw strength of the characters that are present.
Take the cult-classic 1985 film, "The Breakfast Club."
If you break down the entire plot of this film, it literally boils down to five different students being stuck in detention together. That's it.
Talk about a weak plot, right?
But it doesn't feel like it's inhibiting the story at all. In fact, due to the plot being so simple, the narrative can focus on character-building and the relationships of these five individuals, their thoughts, their opinions, their personalities— it's done in service of the narrative.
Imagine just how entertaining it'd be to just have the cast of the Avengers sit down together at their headquarters and just discuss amongst themselves? No plot, no villain, no nothing. Just watching the personalities of the members bounce off of each other and build between them.
How entertaining would that be to watch?
What about having Sherlock being locked in a room with Tony Stark, Doctor Strange, and Doctor Who, and his only way out is through banter? (This is exactly why fan-fictions do so well regardless of their plot. Because they have so much material to work with that has already been done for them by the source material.)
YOU ARE READING
So, about writing.
RandomIt's an arduous, difficult process. Especially so when writing a fully-fledged novel with several hundred pages worth of content that you have to sit down and somehow create something from nothing. Even though one of the laws of science is that you...
