When watching a show or reading a book, there are a few things I look for to determine its general quality.
Characters
Are the characters realistic, likable, and interesting? There are a few easy ways to test this.
- What does the character want? —This is Character 101. Depending on what philosophers you read, mankind is a race entirely defined by its appetites. A character who doesn't want anything is a character without direction, purpose, or any kind of audience appeal.
- What keeps the character from getting what he wants? —All stories are about struggle. No struggle, no story. The most basic kind of struggle? I want something, but cannot have it. Of course, this question is impossible to answer if the character doesn't want anything.
- What is the character doing to get over this obstacle? —Characters who never do anything are innately less interesting than characters who do. This is why many people prefer to pay attention to villains: they're proactive, while some heroes sit on their butts letting the plot happen to them. It's a very bad sign when the only thing keeping the audience from cheering for the villain is because "he's the bad guy."
- Is the character consistent? —Counterintuitively, we hold characters to a higher standard of consistency than we do real people. If a real person reverses his/her decision on an issue without any real reason for doing it, we chalk it up to wishy-washiness. If a character rapidly changes his motivations, desires, or methods with no prior cause, however, it's generally a bad sign.
Storytelling
I'm a big fan of fearlessness, meaning a willingness to attempt risky things in telling the story. You may have noticed that a lot of popular stories are about as cookie-cutter as pop music. As in music, so in storytelling: there are only about seven shows that get made anymore (content warning. Also, the video says 8, but I think two of them overlap). You've got...- Strong Male Antihero's Journey to Redemption (Mad Men, Breaking Bad, The Sopranos)
- Entitled, Rich White People Dealing with Entitled, Rich White People Problems (Entourage, Sex and the City, How to Make It in America)
- Quirky Charming Expert at Something—with a Twist! (Psych, Suits, White Collar, Monk)
- Case of the Week Procedural (CSI:, CSI: New York, CSI: Miami, Law and Order, Law and Order: SVU, Law and Order: CI, Criminal Minds, and on and on and on....)
- The Sitcom! (How I Met Your Mother, The Big Bang Theory, Two and a Half Men)
- Edgy Bad Boy Who Happens to Be Right All the Time (House, Sherlock, 24, Hell's Kitchen, Firefly)
- Great Comedies for Elitist Culture Snobs Out of Touch with the Common Man (Community, The Office, 30 Rock, Parks and Recreation)
Of course, being in one of those categories doesn't indicate the show itself isn't fearless (or that it's bad writing—Breaking Bad is one of the best written shows I've ever seen). Fearlessness is usually indicated by a willingness to change the status quo. Most shows stick with what's already proven successful. This is safe, and turns a consistent profit, and is incredibly boring. Shows that consciously subvert this and venture into unexplored territory are often better than those which don't. They do this by...
- Killing off characters
- Changing characters' life circumstances
- Directly subverting viewer expectation
Tight Writing
It's amazing how little you can say while talking a lot. In general terms, the mark of a great writer is how much she can communicate in very few words. Spending more words on less meaning is typically the mark of an amateur (he said, 550 words into his post). Accordingly, great writing communicates huge meaning in just a few words. This is a bit harder to judge, since it's more subjective, but usually you can spot tight writing by asking a simple question: "If that line were cut, would the story lose some of its meaning?" If the answer is no, the writing isn't airtight.
Disclaimer
Though these are things I look for, they're not the be-all-end-all of good storytelling; they're just what I happen to like, and what I've learned to be signs of strong, experienced writing. Stories that fail on these fronts are still allowed to be liked—we'll just have disagreements over what's worth liking. On that topic, please do disagree with me. I have a bad habit of assuming that my opinion is the only one worth having, so having arguments is good for me. Losing arguments is even better.
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