What makes a good story?
The thing that makes me lean in rather than skim ahead.
A fellow storyteller sent me his draft last week and asked if I would mind taking a look.
Of course not. I love this sort of thing.
But the task got me thinking… what actually makes a story good?
Ask any writer and you’ll get a different answer.
Some will tell you it’s all about emotion. Others swear by a solid plot or a three-act structure.
Then there are those who’ll say that if you make the protagonist relatable enough, the rest writes itself.
All true, to be fair.
But as I worked through my friend’s piece, something else kept bugging me, and I couldn’t quite shake it.
It bothered me through the first read. Then the second…
I wanted to give my friend something useful, not just “yeah, nice work mate” and a thumbs up emoji, but this one thought kept pulling my attention sideways.
It wasn’t until read three that it finally clicked.
The thing that makes me lean in rather than skim ahead is tension.
A good story, for me, needs something unresolved. A looming threat, a challenge that hasn’t been answered yet, an internal dilemma, or a conflict of some sort.
That’s my line in the sand.
But I’d love to know yours. When you’re reading, or writing, or even watching a story, what’s the one thing that pulls you in?
What makes it stick? Let me know in the comments.