fun all the way

[marycatelli]

There are some writers who write excellent first halves of books.

The problem is that they throw all this wonderful, whimsical stuff in the first half, and then in the second, they have to resolve the plot, so they stop throwing wonderful, whimsical stuff at you and so the story stops being fun.

The real problem is, you really do have to reach some kind of resolution so merely going on throwing stuff about doesn't fulfill the purposes of the story.  It can be hard to juggle an interesting setting and the plot -- but I've noticed the problem seems the worst in books that stay in one place.  Much maligned though the quest is, it, or any kind of journey, gives your characters excuse to keep on moving to new neat stuff while you are pulling together the plot.

Comments

[green-knight.livejournal.com]

I would go as far as to say that if you resolve everything, you'll become predictable and boring.

Good books have plenty of ambiguity. At least IMNSHO. I want to be surprised by the story, I want the protagonist to have several equally valid choices (so that the one he takes means something - 'save the world or watch all your friends die isn't a choice. It's boring, however danger-loaded it might be). I want to _not_ be able to predict which briefly introduced minor character will prove important later on, which of the several options proves to be the bad guy etc etc.

[marycatelli]

OTOH, you don't want the readers dissatisfied with what you did with the red herrings, and you probably do want to reveal the bad guy at the climax.

Still, you can leave some things hanging to the end and beyond. You don't even have to conclusively settle whether, say, the ring really is a wishing ring, or whether the mumbling old man really is a wizard, an angel, or a cursed survivor of a cataclysm. Works best when it's not the focus of the plot.