A typical story relies on a common template of exposition, rising action, climax, falling action and resolution. While there are many elements to any story, the reader decides whether or not the story is “good” and deemed worthy of reading.
Abby Ankrom’s opinion was that books lose the reader’s interest when a writer includes too much dialogue or too many characters.
“Either it gets super confusing, has a lot of characters or it stops having plot twists,” Ankrom said. “Too much information that it gets too confusing.” Abby would also say that books get boring if you can predict the end of the story.
A strong fictional universe is also an important fictional element to Ankrom. Not every reader cares about the plot as much as they do about the place where the book is set. Many books that are fiction have fake worlds and areas where the book is set but some people, including Abby, would like to visit these fictional places.
“I would go to Illea,” Abby said.
Illea is the U.S. having been overrun by another government power having a new political system, states and way of life. Illea is from the book “The Selection.”
Some books have ties to other books or installments in their respective ways. An example of this is “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them” which takes place in the Harry Potter universe by providing readers with lore.
Most books based on lore don’t have to be from a movie or other books, some can be based on video games. Freshman Jayden DeYoung enjoys playing video games in his spare time and learning about the lore of the games he plays but sometimes he reads about them.
“I typically don’t read unless it ties to a video game,” DeYoung said.
Not every book has to be about other popular books or movies but sometimes it can be about popular video games.
“I mostly read books based on the popular video game “Call of Duty”. Call of Duty was a known game that includes non-stop action and is typically based on military action.”
Sometimes if a book isn’t clear, boring, or confusing it wont keep its reader. Sometimes the author has to keep the reader’s interest by feeding them crumbs or hooking them in.
“In my opinion, I think that if the author writes things down very clearly and if there are enough interesting things to hook off of on the reader,” freshman Danica Clay said. “The author must keep things very clear and concise if they want to keep the reader interested in the book and along with keeping interesting things that hook the reader into reading further.”