The Four Components of Enjoyable Fiction

There are four aspects that I always analyse before determining whether a particular novel is a good work of fiction. These four things are grammar, character development, world building, and plot. The order isn’t important, because all of these aspects contribute equally. However, for ease of reading, these components will remain in the order above.

It doesn’t take a genius to know that grammar is imperative to any book, article, tweet, and any other piece of writing. This doesn’t mean that your grammar has to be phenomenal and beyond reproach. All it means is that juvenile mistakes like spelling a word wrong or autocorrect (whatever you want to call it), like “the clouds wee overhead” versus “the clouds were overhead” are hilarious, yet unacceptable. I came across an alrming instance of bad grammar by a college student in a college class I was taking. His opening sentence to his paper was,

“When it comes to students who are getting ready once they are ready to graduate from high school, college is often a goal students wish to attend to accomplish whatever goals they have set for themselves and their future lives."

I don’t know about you, but I was lost and confused about everything. As an author, you don’t want your readers scratching their head at the first sentence and leaving by the second. Grammar is important for clarity, flow, and keeping your readers around. Grammar also contributes to your credibility. If yOu staRT wRitinG liKe tHis, nobody is going consider you a reliable source.

Character development may not contribute to the clarity of your work, but it certainly makes your readers feel at home. You want your readers to be friends with your characters, to experience their disappointments, feel their pain, and to feel an affinity in their most vulnerable moments. A character should be relateable, and most importantly, dependable. The reader needs to understand them, to love them, and to trust them. If your character is even tempered and only blows up at the very worst of injustices, then when they lose their temper at a taxi driver for turning the wrong way, you are going to lose that connection.

You are betraying your readers when a character acts out of character.

However, character development isn’t just about dependability, it’s about depth. You can have a happy-go-lucky character who never has to face an impossible decision, or never has an insecure/dark moment. But that’s just unrealistic. We all have are demons, even your character. It doesn’t mean that they need to struggle with suicide, pornography, racism, and so on. It can be simply things, like insecurity, pride, pessimism, et cetera. Your character’s demons do not have to be skelletons in the closet, but they also don’t have to be spiders in the drawer. That is up to you. Your charaters need to have depth.

Like a friend, your character needs to be predictable to those who know them.

World building is very similar in concept to character development. Unlike character development, however, there is a lot more freedom to choose how much you want to build your world. You can do so extensively like in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. Or you can take it back to J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, or even Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games. The extent of it is not strictly important, but its presence is. Even the most basic story should have world building, whether it’s set in modern day London or in the fantasy land of an obscure novel. World building is predominantly case by case. I cannot give you a hard and fast rule. It’s all up to you.

I love plots. Plots are the fun part. The plot is the engine to the story. What is the point of a nice car with chairs that are leather, bluetooth, automatic doors and windows if you can’t drive it anywhere. Sure, it may interst you for a time, but—I promise—it will lose it’s spark fast without an engine. The same goes for a story. You may have the best grammar, most relateable characters, and a fascinating world, but without a plot, you lose your readers. Nobody wants to sit in a car that doesn’t drive, or read a plotless book. A plot is what gives the book it’s spark. It drives the characters onward to do things that they never thought they could or would. It gives the world a purpose. And, of course, all of this is done through admirable grammar.

Personally, I am that person that will stick through the shallowest characters, the blankest world, and the worst grammar if the plot is gripping. The plot tugs me into the thick of it all. Likewise, if you have the best of characters, world, and grammar, but the worst plot (or worse, none at all!) then I will leave. You cannot convince me to stay. Your most powerful ally, the plot, can also be your worst enemy. Always push the plot forward. Sure you can have some exposition, but make sure there is a good reason for me to stay.

All of these components work together. However, it is your choice whether they work together to create a revolutionary novel or a bland book.