Week 8

Hi again everyone. Today I am going to be discussing what makes a good story. Everyone is going to have different opinions on what makes a good story. For me it would have to be how much it relates to stuff I like. For example, I like fantasy and horror subjects, so a good story for me would maybe be set in a far way fantasy realm with unfamiliar and deadly entities. A story that would not be so interesting to me would probably have to do something with nonfiction like history. But what makes a good story isn’t just things we have an interest in. Now I don’t do a lot of reading now a days. But I can tell you that both paper and digital stories both require some of the same things to make them entertaining. Lots of things can make any story interesting like conflict; obstacles the character has to face. We can relate to this because everyone has to deal with some sort of obstacle in their life. Conflict in a story is relatable and entertaining. Through conflict we can learn more about the character and their true personality and how the people around them will react to this. Conflict and the hardships we go through define us, or as my parents would say “it builds character.” Another thing that makes a story entertaining is what is the risk the character is taking? If there are high stakes and a lot that the character can lose if they fail, it draws us in. It makes us want to cheer on the character in hope that they don’t fail their quest. This makes the story more suspenseful and intense.

As a writer in the past, I related to the last point they made in the video we had to watch which was what else made a good story was how in depth the character was. How advanced is their personality? How deep is their conflict? How far are they willing to go? Coming up with characters and their backstory’s whether it was tragic and heartfelt or fairly average was always fun. Sometimes it was relatable and maybe based on your own life, sometimes it was completely made up. Either way, even if people had not gone through the circumstances themselves, they could still understand how hard it was for your character. The cool thing about story telling though is even if you have not gone through a scenario which the character has gone through, through good story telling it still makes you feel as if you had a connection to them. It brings out emotions in us. And digital story telling can use some more elements to bring out the story better such as music. Which of course, normal books can’t do.

In conclusion, what makes a good, entertaining story is things like conflict, risk, and character development and depth. Without these key elements, your story and character would be bland, dull, and overall just pretty boring. There would be nothing to thrive for and nothing to lose which would make your audience lose interest. “For a given audience, a story is a sequence of content, anchored on a problem, which engages that audience with emotion and meaning.” (Alexander, Brian 13)

D4Darious. “What Makes A Good Story?” YouTube, YouTube, 24 Mar. 2016, www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=394&v=DCzcoyDp2fY.

Alexander, Brian. “The New Digital Story Telling.”