What makes great fiction?

There are a lot of things that can make writing great. Just as there are many good authors, there are many possible reasons that writing could be considered engaging. I want to write a bit about some of the things that most call my attention.

The best writers vividly imagine the world’s they create before they even pick up the pen. Gabriel Garcia Marquez spoke about imagining scenes completely before writing them. Guy Gavriel Kay speaks in an afterword of “Tigana” that he was continually drawn to a scene in a hunting lodge. This was a sort of keystone that anchored his story and it unfolded from there. When you think about it, good works really draw you into the world, and you experience it as something new that calls to you. The author steadily reveals more and more in a way that lets you participate in the creation and vividness of a story.

Along with unfolding an alternate reality, good authors engage our emotions correctly and keep us interested in the characters and the plot. Orson Scott Card speaks about the sense of correct tension that is created by letting the reader know almost all the information about what is happening, except a little bit. It´s not that we don´t know what´s happening, it is that we know almost everything.

Fiction becomes literature when there is a real question asked by the author to the reader. This central theme of the work might be something that the author themselves have no correct answer for. The best questions are always open ended and instructive just by what is asked. Almost always the author guides the reader through the events of the story, maybe not to solve the question, but to fully explore what considering such a topic could mean or why it could be important.

Lastly, there is always a sense of fun and playfulness in good fiction.