In which Rose, suffering from English Major Withdrawal, attempts to start a discussion on literature

I've been experimenting lately with different ways of quantifying what makes a story work or not work, both in general and for me personally. In a lot of ways, it's almost impossible to do so objectively. Stories themselves are not objective; they require someone to read them, and a huge portion of how we react to stories has to do with a concept my college literature classes called intertextuality: the context that we bring with us when we read, or watch, or otherwise process the story. Who hasn't had the experience of enjoying a story immensely at one point in one's life, only to come back to it a few years later and find it trite or boring or annoying (or vice versa)? Intertextuality plays a huge role in determining what a person likes or doesn't like about any given story.

That said, I've found that there are certain elements that recur in stories consistently rated as "good" or "classic", as well as in stories that I personally enjoy. So attempting to separate those out into a checklist of sorts for my own personal reference when I'm trying to decide what I think about a particular book. (For the purposes of simplification, I'm focusing on novels, here. But the same concepts apply with very little tweaking to movies, as well as the storytelling aspects of games, etc.) Bear in mind, however, that the weighted percentages given are approximate, and can vary from book to book.

All those caveats aside, here's the criteria by which I find myself most often judging a given book, sorted by category:

Plot: 20%
--Is the plot internally consistent? Do the events as presented feel believable within the context of the story?
--Does it feel like circumstances progress logically, or does stuff just happen because the plot dictates?
--Do events rush by in a blur? Do they get bogged down in unnecessary description or other padding?

Character: 25%
--Do the characters stay true to their personalities?
--Do the main characters develop and change at all? When they do, is it in line with their initially established personality traits?
--Does the dialogue sound natural to the ear? Does it follow the usual flow of conversation?
--Do the characters act in ways that are believably human (or nonhuman, in speculative fiction)?

Structure/Style: 15%
--Does the author show us what's going on in his characters' minds, or just tell us straight out?
--How well does the story flow? Is there a sense of cause and effect to the events presented?
--Is the beginning of the story intriguing? Does it set the stage well enough to give a sense of things to come?
--Does the ending provide a sense of closure?
--Does the author's voice ever sound trite or cliché? Is there reliance on snappy one-liners or familiar situations over actual dialogue or description?
--Is there a lot of repetition in phraseology?
--If the author uses a device such as an intrusive narrator, does it fit with the tone of the story?

Subjective enjoyment: 40%
--Do I care about the characters? Do they feel like real people to me?
--Is the plot believable within the context of the world in which it's set?
--Does the story inspire any kind of emotional reaction? How strongly? Why?


Obviously this is a malleable list, and will vary from book to book (and story to story). I'm interested in input - do you judge stories by different criteria? put different weight into these criteria? Why?

In which Rose, suffering from English Major Withdrawal, attempts to start a discussion on literature

I've been experimenting lately with different ways of quantifying what makes a story work or not work, both in general and for me personally. In a lot of ways, it's almost impossible to do so objectively. Stories themselves are not objective; they require someone to read them, and a huge portion of how we react to stories has to do with a concept my college literature classes called intertextuality: the context that we bring with us when we read, or watch, or otherwise process the story. Who hasn't had the experience of enjoying a story immensely at one point in one's life, only to come back to it a few years later and find it trite or boring or annoying (or vice versa)? Intertextuality plays a huge role in determining what a person likes or doesn't like about any given story.

That said, I've found that there are certain elements that recur in stories consistently rated as "good" or "classic", as well as in stories that I personally enjoy. So attempting to separate those out into a checklist of sorts for my own personal reference when I'm trying to decide what I think about a particular book. (For the purposes of simplification, I'm focusing on novels, here. But the same concepts apply with very little tweaking to movies, as well as the storytelling aspects of games, etc.) Bear in mind, however, that the weighted percentages given are approximate, and can vary from book to book.

All those caveats aside, here's the criteria by which I find myself most often judging a given book, sorted by category:

Plot: 20%
--Is the plot internally consistent? Do the events as presented feel believable within the context of the story?
--Does it feel like circumstances progress logically, or does stuff just happen because the plot dictates?
--Do events rush by in a blur? Do they get bogged down in unnecessary description or other padding?

Character: 25%
--Do the characters stay true to their personalities?
--Do the main characters develop and change at all? When they do, is it in line with their initially established personality traits?
--Does the dialogue sound natural to the ear? Does it follow the usual flow of conversation?
--Do the characters act in ways that are believably human (or nonhuman, in speculative fiction)?

Structure/Style: 15%
--Does the author show us what's going on in his characters' minds, or just tell us straight out?
--How well does the story flow? Is there a sense of cause and effect to the events presented?
--Is the beginning of the story intriguing? Does it set the stage well enough to give a sense of things to come?
--Does the ending provide a sense of closure?
--Does the author's voice ever sound trite or cliché? Is there reliance on snappy one-liners or familiar situations over actual dialogue or description?
--Is there a lot of repetition in phraseology?
--If the author uses a device such as an intrusive narrator, does it fit with the tone of the story?

Subjective enjoyment: 40%
--Do I care about the characters? Do they feel like real people to me?
--Is the plot believable within the context of the world in which it's set?
--Does the story inspire any kind of emotional reaction? How strongly? Why?


Obviously this is a malleable list, and will vary from book to book (and story to story). I'm interested in input - do you judge stories by different criteria? put different weight into these criteria? Why?

More family drama. Yay!

After another couple of anti-immigration email forwards from my aunt, my mother sent her a somewhat formal-sounding message requesting again that she stop sending those to us. My aunt, being her usual nonconfrontational, innocent, sweet, passive-aggressive, manipulative self, sent a tearful letter back about how she was "only passing along interesting news, like the time of day" and how my mother's letter sounded so harsh and made her want to cry, and was my mother feeling all right? was everything all right with work? how was her stained-glass business going? were things okay with her and Steve? Because of course my mother wouldn't be so mean to her sister unless something was terribly wrong and she needed someone to inquire after her and take care of her. Sheesh. (For the record, the last several times I've talked to my mother -- which were quite recently -- her stained glass business is doing fantastically, as is her job, and she and Steve seem completely happy with each other.)

I know my aunt means well, but "PASSIVE-AGGRESSIVE" is written all over this in giant blinking neon letters. I'm just certain that she's completely convinced that if she finds the right missionary or sends us the right email forward, then of course we'll see how she's right about everything and will agree with her on politics and come be good Mormons with her in Colorado and never argue about anything again. And sadly enough, she truly does have our best interests at heart. Truly believing that people one cares about are going to hell (or purgatory, or whatever the Mormon equivalent is - help me out here, Adam) is a big motivator to get them to join your religion. I wonder if that's how the concept of "hell" first came about in religiosity in general - as an evangelical tool?

Anyway, I wrote another somewhat formal-sounding message to her detailing why, exactly, my mother was annoyed, and I was annoyed, and how (for the sake of friendly familial relations, which my aunt obviously values) it would probably work best for us to keep our political opinions to ourselves, and maybe she should give some thought to the truthfulness and necessity of these email forwards before passing them along? Hopefully that'll get the message through without making her break down from the confrontational elements - I have a sneaking suspicion that my rebuttal might be easier to handle, since I'm the niece and therefore don't know any better. But hey, maybe she'll surprise us and take it to heart.

All that said, however, if I get any more "OMG ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS" (or other equally inflammatory and untrue email forwards) from her I'm going to hit "reply all" and send the link to this:

More family drama. Yay!

After another couple of anti-immigration email forwards from my aunt, my mother sent her a somewhat formal-sounding message requesting again that she stop sending those to us. My aunt, being her usual nonconfrontational, innocent, sweet, passive-aggressive, manipulative self, sent a tearful letter back about how she was "only passing along interesting news, like the time of day" and how my mother's letter sounded so harsh and made her want to cry, and was my mother feeling all right? was everything all right with work? how was her stained-glass business going? were things okay with her and Steve? Because of course my mother wouldn't be so mean to her sister unless something was terribly wrong and she needed someone to inquire after her and take care of her. Sheesh. (For the record, the last several times I've talked to my mother -- which were quite recently -- her stained glass business is doing fantastically, as is her job, and she and Steve seem completely happy with each other.)

I know my aunt means well, but "PASSIVE-AGGRESSIVE" is written all over this in giant blinking neon letters. I'm just certain that she's completely convinced that if she finds the right missionary or sends us the right email forward, then of course we'll see how she's right about everything and will agree with her on politics and come be good Mormons with her in Colorado and never argue about anything again. And sadly enough, she truly does have our best interests at heart. Truly believing that people one cares about are going to hell (or purgatory, or whatever the Mormon equivalent is - help me out here, Adam) is a big motivator to get them to join your religion. I wonder if that's how the concept of "hell" first came about in religiosity in general - as an evangelical tool?

Anyway, I wrote another somewhat formal-sounding message to her detailing why, exactly, my mother was annoyed, and I was annoyed, and how (for the sake of friendly familial relations, which my aunt obviously values) it would probably work best for us to keep our political opinions to ourselves, and maybe she should give some thought to the truthfulness and necessity of these email forwards before passing them along? Hopefully that'll get the message through without making her break down from the confrontational elements - I have a sneaking suspicion that my rebuttal might be easier to handle, since I'm the niece and therefore don't know any better. But hey, maybe she'll surprise us and take it to heart.

All that said, however, if I get any more "OMG ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS" (or other equally inflammatory and untrue email forwards) from her I'm going to hit "reply all" and send the link to this: