: What exactly makes a story interesting? (philosophical) So I am trying to write a story for a game. I am more of a systems guy so this is uncharted territory. I try not to follow examples

What makes us as humans interested in reading about the suffering of the characters in the story?

In fiction, they don't expect that suffering to last, at least not for the main characters or heroes they are identifying with. The suffering justifies what the heroes must do to overcome whatever evil or hardship they face. It is not watching gladiators or boxers, those fighters are just fighting, they are not defending any principles, not defending or rescuing the innocent, not sacrificing themselves for their children or for humanity, they aren't fighting for any reason other than to win.

We want to see heroes that sacrifice themselves for what is right to defeat evil that is wrong.

"Evil" is the selfish premise that getting your way, in terms of wealth, sex, luxury, power, or ideology justifies any harm it causes to innocent others: Injury, death, disease, misery, grief or despair. Obviously there are degrees of evil.

"Right" is the opposite altruistic premise, that avoiding and preventing harm to innocents is worthy and admirable, and actually risking harm yourself to prevent harms to innocents is heroic.

What keeps you reading? I mean, why do you care of what happens next, if you really just wanted to know only that you could let yourself get spoilered. So there is more than that.

What keeps you reading is indeed wondering what happens next, but also you want to follow the adventure. Spoilers spoil the adventure of vicariously being the hero (or beside the hero) and going through their experiences, emotions, suffering and epiphanies. Spoiler Alert: In real life, in the end we all die, every one of us. But that doesn't really matter today; today we can have some fun!

The journey is what matters and builds the vicarious virtual experience, just knowing the ending doesn't provide the virtual experience. We read because the fiction presents something near to a life experience, in a few hours. We don't want the spoilers because in real life we don't know how the future will turn out, we take risks without knowing if we will win, and sometimes we don't win. We want the fiction to reflect real life (with a bias toward heroes defeating evil in the end, which is unfortunately not how real life usually turns out).

Do you enjoy happy endings? Why exactly or why not? (unfortunate endings might appeal to some because of the realism, but that of course gives the question: What do you read stories for? To learn from them or for the enjoyment?)

I have read Hollywood studios have studied this, and find that regardless of awards, critical acclaim or anything else, happy endings outsell unhappy endings by 10 to one, or more specifically, "evil defeated" endings outsell "hero defeated" endings by 10 to one. We are looking for sacrifice, so a hero can die defeating evil, making the ultimate sacrifice, and that can still be seen as a good ending. But evil prevailing (unless it is in a series and a temporary victory) is not going to sell well, even if it wins Oscars or Book Awards or critics love it.

People like happy endings because they consume fiction to escape the real world, where mobsters and frauds and assholes and evil people in general abound and seem to operate and prevail with impunity. In real life children get cancer and die, they are torn apart in car wrecks by drunk drivers that get away with it, people get raped and murdered and the police do nothing about it, nor does anyone else.

In real life heroes don't appear, or people trying to be heroes fail or get killed without saving anybody. Corporations hide and cover up their lies and profit-seeking shortcuts that ruined innocent lives, and get away with a fine that costs them 1% of their profits. ohhh nooo! (ahem, high five).

We (for the most part) read fiction to escape that aspect of real life. We do want our fiction to be 'true to life' in the sense of seeming like it could really happen, that helps us immerse ourself in the story and the adventure. But we don't want the "realism" of heroes usually being defeated and evil winning in the end. That is not escapism, if we want to feel depressed and hopeless we can watch the news of the world on almost any night.

The truth from the real world is crime pays. Evil has a competitive advantage in politics, business, running religions or charities -- because the truly evil are willing to do anything to win, and anybody with a shred of morality is, by definition, not willing to do anything to win, and the more moral they are the less effective they can be.

That is the fundamental dilemma of life; being on the side of "right" is bringing a knife to a gunfight. In fiction, to be escapist, the hero with the knife needs to defeat the gunslinger, against the odds. Otherwise it isn't a happy ending, and people don't enjoy it, so they don't recommend it, or they give it a bad review and say the ending was disappointing, or they say nothing about it but recommend something else that DID have a happy ending.

Call that word of mouth or whatever you want, in the modern world we pay a lot of attention to what other people think about entertainment because we find it predictive of how much we will like the entertainment, and that is why sales figures are highly correlated to how much the public actually liked consuming a particular book or movie. And that is why Happy Endings outsell Unhappy Endings ten to one; a small percentage of "independents" are willing to try an entertainment first and "blind", but their reactions then become extremely important. If they say they didn't care for it, that kills the sales to the 90% of people that are more cautious and won't buy without any recommendation. As soon as an early independent waves them off they move on; there is a glut of other entertainment to buy that is recommended.

Yes, we like happy endings, and particularly in the modern world that preference will be reflected in your sales.

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Question: What makes a story interesting?

Answer: Here are the things I find make stories interesting.

Relationships. Think less about plot and more about how the parts (edit: the way the characters) fit together in helpful vs. harmful ways. Balance the relationships. Some good, some bad, show both. Conflict, but also support.
Time. Good stories give us characters that have had a past and that yearn toward a future. Storytelling limited to 'in the moment' risks portraying characters that do not have this sort of dimensionality. We are all a product of the past and we all have dreams. Characters can and should, too.
Multi-sensate experience. Smell, sound, etc.

Although there are lots of parts to a good story, I think these are some of the really important bits that sometime get overlooked.

(Page-turning is down to conflict and suspense and well-crafted writing. Satisfying endings should fulfill the contract and need not be happy. But this feels like we're starting to open a can of worms.)

Edit (to comment): "isn't how the parts fit together the same as the plot?" To my mind, the way events fit together, one leading to the next, is plot. The way people fit together--adversary, loyal best friend, mentor, lover, commander, and so on--is less linear, more fluid, and sort of 'chewier' to a story. Example: when a lover turns into a stalker, that's a plot point, but also a shift in relationship between two characters. And, a story can have a complete arc but if it lacks any friendship it might feel less realized than otherwise. That's the sort of thing I mean. I like stories that have a breadth of developed relationships in addition to developed characters.

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