I'd been thinking about this as well, but hadn't made the connection to it being the opposite of our trying to figure out what made things depressing. A few qualities I found that seem to hold across most of mine: - A viewpoint character who I like and identify with. Tho this in itself is a pretty broad and hard to define category even just for my own taste. All the examples I can think of, tho, are broken in some way (maybe not at the start, but eventually), but keep going, deal with it, and eventually get something of worth out of that damage.
- Significant conflict/obstacles to overcome. I sometimes like Slice of Life and Gentle* Fiction, but they're not comfort reads to me. These should be mostly things coming from outside, rather than being caused entirely by the character doing stupid stuff and having to deal with the consequences.
- The main character always has something to do to keep them moving toward overcoming those obstacles and is doing it. This is a big part of why Paladin of Souls falls down for me compared to the other two in that "series": There's that really nasty chunk where they're stuck in the castle with nothing they can do while the sorcerers fuck everything up.
- And yeah, it doesn't have to be a "Mega Happy Ending", but it should be a clearly victorious one, even if there were costs.
A few off the top of my head: - The Deed of Paksennarion - The Curse of Chalion - Komarr & A Civil Campaign (And sometimes Memory first) - Sunshine & Chalice, by Robin McKinley - Most of the Vimes books. Which in particular depends on my exact mood, but Guards! Guards!, Night Watch, and now Snuff are pretty regular there. - A few other Pratchetts. Reaper Man, Pyramids, Soul Music. - Narbonic
*I think that's the term I'm looking for. Stories where nothing bad happens.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
chiming
no subject
Date: 2012-10-05 04:35 pm (UTC)From:- A viewpoint character who I like and identify with. Tho this in itself is a pretty broad and hard to define category even just for my own taste. All the examples I can think of, tho, are broken in some way (maybe not at the start, but eventually), but keep going, deal with it, and eventually get something of worth out of that damage.
- Significant conflict/obstacles to overcome. I sometimes like Slice of Life and Gentle* Fiction, but they're not comfort reads to me. These should be mostly things coming from outside, rather than being caused entirely by the character doing stupid stuff and having to deal with the consequences.
- The main character always has something to do to keep them moving toward overcoming those obstacles and is doing it. This is a big part of why Paladin of Souls falls down for me compared to the other two in that "series": There's that really nasty chunk where they're stuck in the castle with nothing they can do while the sorcerers fuck everything up.
- And yeah, it doesn't have to be a "Mega Happy Ending", but it should be a clearly victorious one, even if there were costs.
A few off the top of my head:
- The Deed of Paksennarion
- The Curse of Chalion
- Komarr & A Civil Campaign (And sometimes Memory first)
- Sunshine & Chalice, by Robin McKinley
- Most of the Vimes books. Which in particular depends on my exact mood, but Guards! Guards!, Night Watch, and now Snuff are pretty regular there.
- A few other Pratchetts. Reaper Man, Pyramids, Soul Music.
- Narbonic
*I think that's the term I'm looking for. Stories where nothing bad happens.