What is an excellent story for you?

[InvaderShy 18]

You're bored, pretty bored, and nothing better pass through your mind than walking to movie theater, turn on your TV or read a book.

 

After you read the book or saw the movie/TV series you're thinking: "Whoa, this is incredible. I'll remember this story for a long time". But now imagine other outcome: "No, what the heck was this thing? It's pretty stupid and every character just talk twaddle."

 

Do you ever felt this way?

 

Well, the good-bad story issue obviously depends on each individual's standpoint, but that doesn't mean there's no common denominators like: deep characters, intrigue, etc. And of course, the literary genre carry weight on opinions.

 

Let's admit it, entertainment world is slowly getting rotten: there's almost only superhero's movies (I don't have problem if you like it), terror movies lack thereof, and "Action" movies have no realistic violence but a choreographed violence: a rubber violence. Only few exceptions in animated world are acceptable.

 

So, if there was an "Excellent Story" manual which could help on creating new creative series/movies for eluding remakes after remakes, what would you personally include in it?

 

Think on the "possible future talents" from coming decades and share here what makes an excellent story according to you.

 

If you want you can make a list.

 

 

[Scootalove 10,689]

Adventure stories are excellent stories for me, they grab my attention the minute I read or watch them. However I do prefer action, but adventure stories are more interesting.

[GrauWitz 1,010]

Science-Fiction stories are my favourite stories. Although, my opinion varies on Sci-Fi stories. Movies like Star Trek and 2001: A Space Odyssey are what I call true Science fiction. Stuff like Star Wars is just utter nonsense and technobabble to me.

 

A good science fiction story requires a serious, sombre tone. But not so much that it'll become depressing. It needs some action aswell, but not so much that it comes out as nonsense. It also needs memorable characters (Spock being an example). The story also needs some good ideas. For example, Star Trek: The Motion Picture's idea was a machine planet sending a machine to Planet Earth to find its creator and that was simply magnificent.

[TheYoungestBrony 45]

Thrillers, Horrors, Grimdark, Dark,

Basically anything where things die.

Don't ask why.

[Standard User 2,127]

Gotta love my science-fiction. I also love adventure stories and any genre that has an immersing plot.

 

When it comes to MLP fanfiction, I'm a huge sucker for romance stories.

[CornBreadGang 514]

Mystery by a long shot. It's sort of an inherited trait from my grandmother.

I've go pained love for them ever since my election as the main detective in a murder mystery musical. After that, I decided to read mystery books to sharpen my skills, and I got hooked. Before I was the detective, my favorite genre was fantasy.

[LunarWave 106]

Humor / SciFi

Best served combined and subtle.  :comeatus:

[Katana 298]

Definitely mystery. I absolutely love the Phoenix Wright games, as well as Sherlock Holmes. I especially like the ones where every element seems to fit in a logical way that's needed to catch the killer - some of them just have a series of clues followed up on to finally locate the culprit, and some of them involve jumping across the whole city to just pursue lead by lead. My preference is more of the "locked room murder" type, or at least the ones with shorter lists of suspects.

[Stary Dreams 87]

Fantasy stories and sci-fi books are the way to go for me, call it a way to get lost in a world that's different from us. Problem is, finding the right book that's not filled with stuff that's already been overused >_<

[Judgement 445]

I like horrors and mysteries.

 

Murder mysteries are amazing. They keep me entertained because I am constantly wondering who is going to serve a life sentence in jail. Yay!!

[Game Twinkle 43]

I really love ghost stories. I mean REALLY LOVE ghost stories. 

[SrFrog 927]

Haha, Yes! I so totally loved those fable stories when growing up, nothing teaches kids better than scaring the hell out of them. In general though I've always loved those mythology,legends and folklore from yore.

[~Chaotic Eddie~ 479]

To be honest, if a story can hold my attention and entertain me, I consider it good. The only movie I really didn't like was Sucker Punch, mainly because it made no sense whatsoever.

[Acchan 232]

What I like honestly depends on my mood. I could like anything from fantasy to science fiction, just not horror. Never horror.

[SparklingSquirrels 21,341]

I like all kinds of stories, basically just whatever I feel like at the time. I voted on adventure though, since they usually tend to interest me the most.

[Mand'alor Dash 2,224]

This is an excellent question, and one that I can't believe I hadn't given much thought until now. I consider myself a storytelling aficionado, I'm always that guy who walks out of every movie ranting about why I loved this and that, or hated that and this, and yet I've never stopped to consider what it really is that I look for in a truly excellent story.

 

So, I sat down for a bit, and pondered three of my all-time favorite stories: Breaking Bad, The Last of Us, and Unforgiven.

 

And as I pondered, I started thinking to myself about why I love these stories so much. Before long, the answer was pretty clear.

 

An excellent story is one that raises questions, and leads me to think about things in a brand new way.

 

Unforgiven made me think about the romanticization of violence in media. Not just in westerns, but every genre. More often than not, the protagonist is some big, violent badass who saves the day by killing shit in the name of "justice."

 

Unforgiven takes a much more critical look at this. Taking a life is very serious business, and doing so is not in itself a heroic act. The film's characters represent a broad spectrum of old west archetypes, all chasing the bounty of a man who had far too much to drink on night and ended up taking a knife to a woman and scarring her face. Not exactly Jesse James.

 

The town Sheriff lets him off with a slap-on-the-wrist fine, and the man later offers the victim a pair of strong horses as a peace offering, but her friends will have none of it, and post a fictitious bounty of $1,000 that they simply don't have in return for the man's death.

 

Over the course of the film, the story of what happened becomes bloated and sensationalized beyond all belief, to the point that the bounty attracts "gunslingers" from far and wide, all looking to be the hero who killed an impotent drunkard. From a teenage braggart, to a cowardly old fart, they all seem to think they're the fastest gun in the west, and they all find that the cliches of the old west just don't hold up in real life.

 

Without spoiling too much, Unforgiven tackles the issues related to the romanticization of violence, both broad and specific, in a way that always keeps the audience guessing, and will leave them with a fresh new perspective on the issue for years to come.

 

Breaking Bad, similarly, made me question the role of the protagonist in fiction. It presents the case that just because a character has a ton of screen time and a tragic backstory, that doesn't make them a good guy.

 

Again, without spoiling too much, Walter White is an aging, overqualified, underappreciated high school teacher with a boring home life. One day, he finds out that he has cancer, and that there's no way his family could ever make due without him after he passes on. So, he decides to put his chemistry skills to good use and manufacture crystal meth to secure them a nest egg.

 

Early on, Walter is a dark hero, but a hero nonetheless. However, that eventually changes. Walter, though still technically the show's protagonist, shows his true colors, and we see that the underdog we were supposed to be rooting for in the beginning, is not the man we thought he was.

 

And that's what I took away from Breaking Bad, and why I feel that it is an excellent story. It puts all that "rebellious underdog everyman hero" bunk under the microscope, and comes up with answers that make you rethink everything you thought you knew about storytelling.

 

So, what could possibly top that?

 

I consider The Last of Us to be the greatest story ever told, because the thing it makes me rethink is the very meaning of life. To spoil absolutely nothing about this game, at the end of the game, it puts life at its core into perspective. It makes us look inwardly about what makes our lives worth living, and how those are the things we fight and strive for every day.

 

Bluntly put, The Last of Us makes the point that we live life simply because it's worth it. That it's always better to find something worth living for rather than simply existing day to day. It's all about exploring the intricacies in life, both big and small, that make everything worth it.

 

I love storytelling because I feel it contributes more to the human spirit than any other medium, and if The Last of Us is diving into the meaning of life, and coming up with an answer that puts the entirety of conscious existence into perspective, then I feel that's enough to make it an excellent story.

 

TL;DR, I think that an excellent story is one that makes me see things in brand new ways that I'd never thought possible. It's a story that makes me ask questions that will last all my life.

[Mephala 2,633]

I'm primarily a fan of novels set in real-life eras without any supernatural qualities to it, and for a time I was really into historical fiction. I enjoy seeing things that have happened from the view of someone who was involved. 

 

To really intrigue me to read a book (it's not hard, I'll read pretty much anything besides teen fiction), I like a strong first sentence, to be honest. It is very rare that I have read a book I really loved where that first-impression line was weak or boring unintentionally. It's really hard to want to continue reading when you have no interest in that first little bit.

 

I'm also a sucker for unanswered or implied questions.

[ReverseFaller 2,483]

I enjoy a lot of different kinds of books. I like anything really, as long as the plot interests me.

 

Here are some books I have either recently read, or am going to read shortly. This may give an insight on the types of books I enjoy.

 

• The Fault in our Stars by John Green
• The Stand by Stephen King
• Rising Sun by Robert Conroy

[Orablanco Account 3,707]

An excellent story (for me, at least) is simply one that makes you care about what's going to happen and shows a natural progression of plot and character development. I hate it when anything feels forced or put into the story because it's mandatory.

 

I'm fine with most of any kind of story as long as it's interesting enough and shows a good amount of thought on the creator's part.

Edited January 19, 2014 by CITRUS CHAMP46

[DragonKing235 198]

I have to much to name lol