The Magna Cartas. What Do You Love and Hate In a Book?

[SnakeClock]

Chapter 4 of "No Plot? No Problem!" recommends writing two documents to help with your initial planning of the book; these are your Magna Cartas. Magna Carta I is a list of what you like to have in a book, while Magna Carta II are things you dislike. Here's an example:

• Bubbly characters
• Misunderstood shut-ins
• Misplaced serious characters
• Clever scoundrels
• Fashion
• Victorian England
• Magic
• Social hierarchy (especially dismantiling it)
• Chases
• Unusual forms of transportation
• Animals
• Nature
• Surprises and twists
• Steadfast morality
• Comeuppance
• Unexpectedly happy endings

• Complete slimeballs
• Cliffhanger endings of chapters
• Overly eager tagalong characters
• Ribald sex scenes
• Characters coming around
• Love triangles
• Know-it-alls
• Technology and electronics
• Running the clock
• Torture scenes
• Back-and-forth dialogue
• Endings where nothing really changed

See what I mean? They help you in avoiding what you dislike in a book, so that you won't hate your story once it's done. What would your Magna Cartas consist of?

[HitchhikerClock]

Do Wants:
Apathetic yet charming characters
Frequent Ironic Situations
Less-than-evil Antagonists
Less-than-heroic Protagonists
Douglas Adams

Don't Wants:
Romance of any kind
Time-to-get-seriousness
Obnoxious small talk dialogue with no significance or humor
conspiracy theories
The typical good-beats-bad ending
Historical Fiction about WWII

[PaperClipClock]

i agree with mostly all of you magna carta I's but as things i don't like.

[SnakeClock]

i agree with mostly all of you magna carta I's but as things i don't like.

What's your MCI? Pretty much my MCII?

[HitchhikerClock]

SnakeClock & PaperClipClock : POLAR OPPOSITES??

[PaperClipClock]

What's your MCI? Pretty much my MCII?

some of it.. I like long torture scenes... I like really thoughtful descriptions and self-analysis.

I also don't like when writers put pop culture references in it, like "oh we were listening to no bid deal"

SnakeClock & PaperClipClock : POLAR OPPOSITES??

u r my kryptonite baby!!

[Topcatyo]

I'm keeping my list with the theme of my story rather than just all around stuff to make things easier for me

• Characters with depth
• Villains with human characteristics/flaws
• Creativity (well, duh)
• Humor that doesn't bash you over the head
• Changing history/whatever for the sake of the story and good writing
• Chekhov's gun
• Shakin' things up

• Back and forth dialogue
• One-liners
• Love triangles.  Man, fuck love triangles, I hate them
• Romances thrown in just to add romance to the story
• Anvilicious morals
• Cliffhangers
• Stupid dialogue
• Hum-drum ideas
• Cardboard cut-out characters
• Mary Sues
• Pointless plot additions
• Pointless plot additions that are soon forgotten
• Ridiculous Chekhov's gun
• Predictability
• Explaining everything ever (ruins the mystery/fun of things, takes away the fun of willing suspension of disbelief)
• Overseriousness
• Soap opera romance
• Will they won't they? romance
• Long intermissions of absolutely nothing

[SnakeClock]

some of it.. I like long torture scenes... I like really thoughtful descriptions and self-analysis.

That I enjoy. The mental perceptions of torture are more interesting than the torture itself. Like, the scene in Nineteen Eighty-Four where Winston's being tortured, he's all "He tightened the rack and it hurt, I still didn't believe in Big Brother." His encounter in Room 101 was more lividly described, though.

I also don't like when writers put pop culture references in it, like "oh we were listening to no bid deal"

That too is nonsense. You're writing your story, why pillage everyone else?

Though in my last story, I had a little aside where a character mentions joke names of various fast food restaurants, like McLeod's, Shirley's, and stuff like that. It was pretty incidental, though.

I'm keeping my list with the theme of my story rather than just all around dingen to make things easier for me

I like the word "Anvilicious".

[clockradioclock]

Likes:

• Intricate little puzzles
• Surprises
• Witty protagonists
• Third person narration
• Happy endings
• France
• Tricks the senses (i.e: smelling the odors described, tasting the food being eaten)
• Social and/or political satire
• Butterfly effects.

Dislikes:

• Long, overdone descriptions of people, places and objects
• Cliffhanger endings between chapters or between a series of books
• Love triangles and complicated character relations
• Heavy use of historical events
• Use of magic and sorcery
• Medieval times.

[Silly Putty Clock]

I'm giving this a try.

loose but effective descriptions that let you form your own idea of how things look

narrative that gives the reader insight into the characters' states of mind (especially first-person)

originality to the nth degree

[Silly Putty Clock]

I'm giving this a try.

loose but effective descriptions that let you form your own idea of how things look

narrative that gives the reader insight into the characters' states of mind (especially first-person)

originality to the highest possible degree

unconventional magic/technology, as long as the author does not get too into describing how things work

escapes

unconventional, non-clichéd usage of ordinary objects

mentally unstable or eccentric characters

mentally stable conformist characters whose thinking is obviously flawed

antagonists who the reader can agree with

protagonists who the reader can disagree with

so basically, all characters are flawed and imperfect, resulting in a utopia of angst

strong atmosphere and voice (a good book will completely alter your mood when you get into it)

amibiguous writing (interpretable in many ways)

narration that focusses too much on setting and exact workings of magic/technology

flat/wooden characters (although, when used appropriately, they can work to tell the reader something)

lack of voice and atmosphere

characters who stay the same (similarly to flat characters, though, they can be used to send the reader a message)

clichés, unless used in a Pulp Fiction-ish manner

overuse of conventional magic and technology

stories in which every single thing that happens has to have a reason or contribute to the overall plot (unless they form a complex, watch-like puzzle of a plot; those are enjoyable)

excessive happiness without humour, although I do sometimes enjoy pleasant literature

anything that doesn't encourage thought or feeling in the reader

[Poltergeist]

Likes:

• Authors philosophy/characters philosophy explored
• Symbollism
• Believable characters
• Romance/love that plays a part in the story AND IS BLIEVABLE
• Choices
• Character relations
• Psychology
• Scenes of optimism
• Bad guys that are almost good guys
• Mentally unstable characters
• Belief-questioning
• Loyalty
• Characters with flaws that are there, but aren't pointed out
• Unreliable narration
• Clues

Can't stand 'ems:

• Unempathetic characers (It works if they still have SOME depth, but it's an overall no-no)
• Double-crossing
• Anything that gives you a sense of time when not needed. I love stuff like "it was the fifties back then barbers trimmed your nose hair look there's on doing it now look". It's shit like "Look there's some guy eating McDonalds listening to Linkin Park on his iPod nano he just saw Spiderman 3"
• Cliche' lines
• People speaking, but not in dialouge (as in using words/phrases the characters wouldn't)
• Love stories with no depth
• Undeveloped angst
• Lone wolf characters
• I cannot stress this enough, Deus Ex Machina. It is fucking awful.
  
• Last-minute escapes
• government = evil
• Magic/sci-fi out of nowhere, not originally part of the story

[Silly Putty Clock]

Likes:

• Magic/sci-fi out of nowhere, not originally part of the story

[Poltergeist]

BOY CHECK YO' INFORMATION

[Silly Putty Clock]

BOY CHECK YO' INFORMATION

Whoops, I did the quoting wrong. I was meaning to make a reference to the gradual transformation of the world into a hallucinatory fantasy land in my story.

[Poltergeist]

Whoops, I did the quoting wrong. I was meaning to make a reference to the gradual transformation of the world into a hallucinatory fantasy land in my story.

No, what I mind is when you get halfway through a book and suddenly they just introduce shit like magic out of nowhere. If it's done to symbolise something, a la Paranoia Agent or Donnie Darko I don't really mind

[Silly Putty Clock]

No, what I mind is when you get halfway through a book and suddenly they just introduce shit like magic out of nowhere.

What, like Stephen King's Insomnia?

[Poltergeist]

What, like Stephen King's Insomnia?

Shame to say I've never read it.


If the fantasy is meant to be there and doesn't feel out of place, it's fine. If it's a really slow slip into magic, awesome, but if in one page they introduce a giant robotic nazi dinosaur that lives in sausage world it's annoying

[ProzacClock]

Shame to say I've never read it.


If the fantasy is meant to be there and doesn't feel out of place, it's fine. If it's a really slow slip into magic, awesome, but if in one page they introduce a giant robotic nazi dinosaur that lives in sausage world it's annoying

Damnit, you just ruined about half the plot to my story.

[IvysaurClock]

Man, I can tell y'all have been boning up on Tv Tropes.

MC1:
-Dry humour
-Lots of endearing minor characters.
-Justified "villains" who could easily be the main characters, if the point of view were changed.
-Unreliable narrators
-Side-plots mentioned in passing, but still resolved.


MC2:
-Things that date the book five years after it's released. A bit of historical context is good, but finger-on-the-pulse cultural references can make your book impenetrable if used too heavily.
-Tragic pasts used as an explanation for EVERYTHING. Daddy issues are not the be-all-and-end-all of a person. It feels cheap and demeaning.
-Inadequate foreshadowing.
-On that note, too much foreshadowing. There's a fine balance between showing the gun and having people talk about the gun every fifteen fucking seconds.