WHAT MAKES A GOOD STORY?

What Makes a Good Story?

A good story’s made up of several aspects, including the characters, the plot, the atmosphere, the relationships, and the amount of detail and thinking that goes into it. 

The main thing that makes a good story are strong and exciting characters. They need to have interesting backgrounds, stay consistent (e.g. a character that is not very bright shouldn’t suddenly start using long confusing words), and make the reader/viewer want to know more about them, why they’re like they are and where they come from. Not all characters are created to be liked (every story needs a bad guy), but all the characters need to be ‘likeable’ in a way.

Stories also need interesting plots. The plot needs to have enough to it that it stays exciting throughout the story, but not so confusing that a larger majority of people don’t understand it.

The atmosphere of the story needs to be appropriate and suit what is happening during a particular scene. In more visual stories, this can be accomplished by music and lighting as well as the setting. In books, the description of setting and types of adjectives used are central in accomplishing this.

Relationships are also key in stories. The main character/s should have relationships that develop over the story and they even need to have them with the villains (why would there be a villain if the hero wasn’t on bad terms with them?). It needs to be explained as to why different characters act certain ways around others.

Most good stories have a good amount of detail in them (e.g. the whole magical world and the different objects in Harry Potter) and how original they are. Most stories that are very similar to another tend to be boring. The amount of thought that goes into a story can show through when sequels are produced.