What makes a great story?

The thing I enjoy the most about writing is studying people, and then creating characters. Sentient gave a name to my art, "forumotography".

By using this forum. By writing regularly, but also by joining in, contributing, and listening to other people's criticism, those writers who are sincere about their art can also create their own art form.

As I said before, the main thing that "makes" a book for me are the characters. For example, I found Dan Brown's books interesting, but soul-less. There's nothing to return to, just a shocking roller-coaster ride before the next freakshow rolls into town.

 

I think I agree with you actually
the characters and conventions def. make the story for me
the conflicts are more of just enhancers

 

Has anyone here read the "writer's journey"?

 

I always liked Kurt Vonnegut's answer to this one: the "good fortune/ill fortune" scale... he said literature was made up of characters that first have something, lose it, and then get it back again. He plotted various stories on good/ill fortune graphs and found that many stories in western civilization follow this pattern. One exception was Kafka's "Metamorphosis," which started at "ill fortune" and graphed downwards to infinity.

For me, a good story has something that I can take out of it. It doesn't just provide me thrills and chills or lots of big words and literary pyrotechnics. I've found that not many stories deliver this, but I have a good time searching regardless.