They aren't always present in genre fiction, however. Some of the best genre stories don't end with a resolution, particularly in genres like horror. And literary doesn't demand a lack of them either.
Plot Story Structure – Narrative Arc
- Thread starter Louanne Learning
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They aren't always present in genre fiction, however. Some of the best genre stories don't end with a resolution, particularly in genres like horror. And literary doesn't demand a lack of them either.
Agreed.
In non-genre writing, especially the best of it, story is usually a vehicle or a trellis that exists to carry other elements of the work. It need only be serviceable, and should not distract from the main points by being too bad or too exciting. The latter is a form of appealing to baser instincts IMO.
Smilla's Sense Of Snow kind of spoiled its literary promise that way. But it thereby fulfilled its commercial promise, and the author made his choice.
Speaking of Smilla, there was BTW an interesting controversy around its translation. Like many educated Europeans I've met, Høeg was vain of his non-native English. He insisted on "improving" the professional translation by Tiina Nunnally, a highly capable and respected translator, and it led in the end to the publication of two English translations, one in the UK and the other elsewhere. Høeg's UK version had a number of characteristic Euro-English (a pidgin of sorts, distinct from the UK English it fancies itself to be) flaws and is interesting in that right.
Rather than go further into my own perspective, I'll leave this discussion here.
(Who knows best? Style, meaning and the Smilla controversy)
That's one of quite a few discussions available today.
I first read the book in Swedish, closely related to the original Danish but not without its own translation challenges vis-a-vis the original, then in Nunnally's translation and then Höeg's.
Rather than go further into my own perspective, I'll leave this discussion here.
(Who knows best? Style, meaning and the Smilla controversy)
That's one of quite a few discussions available today.
I first read the book in Swedish, closely related to the original Danish but not without its own translation challenges vis-a-vis the original, then in Nunnally's translation and then Höeg's.
Save the Cat etc are mostly for new writers starting out, gives them the basic structure for a story, but your focus once you get into it, should be to move beyond it, cause most great stories don't follow it. You'll learn how the bits fit together to make a workable story, but nothing will teach you to really understand like reading good books will.
