Between a story's plot and flow, which do you think is more important?

ddevans

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Feb 18, 2020
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Speaking for myself, as a reader: grammar and spelling are just prerequisites. Especially spelling. The less tangible stuff like how evocatively you describe things are less important, as long as you remember to describe things that are important to the scene. I think long passages of scene-setting are often dull unless they include something interesting or unexpected, are relevant to the plot, or the author has an especially lyrical style.

As far as a plot, I'm a basic sort of reader and like the idea that the story is going somewhere. Individual scenes might move the big plot along, but they could also increase our understanding of the characters, or the world, or simply try to be funny or clever. I've read books (The Wind-up Bird Chronicle, for example) where there isn't much of a plot and large portions seem to be a waste of time. People say that kind of thing is the mark of a genius though, and it doesn't hurt that Murakami has a way with words. Ditto Stephenson in his own lightly plotted 'masterpiece' The Baroque Cycle. I hate that kind of indulgence, but other readers lap it up.

So my answer is that spelling is the most important thing. Grammar is a distant second. As for the rest, I say just try to deliver big on at least one of the many, many elements that make up good writing as you see it. There will be someone out there who keys in on it. As a writer I think my strength is banter, so I try to focus on that.
 

0919105406

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Dec 19, 2019
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I think flow is more important. It is the first impression to a story, before readers can understand what the plot is actually about. And, no one can understand a good s
plot with bad flow anyway.
 

Aquandel

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Jan 4, 2019
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I'll read anything (other than tragedy or horror; we got enough of that IRL) if the flow is great. There's plot threads I enjoy more than others, but the way a story is told is infinitely more important that what a story tells.
 
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