What makes a good fiction book?
Emma Ogren, Staff Writer
Feature graphic by Emma Ogren
Reading has always been a prevalent hobby, but with the pandemic boom of book-based groups on social media, such as “BookTok” and “Bookstagram,” it is even more so now. Cultivated communities have allowed creators and watchers to come together to talk about interests and things they want to see in their books.
Niche topics and tropes have been created to market new books and create buzz online for audiences to buy into the concept. This leads to more people being open to reading as a hobby and continuing to purchase books to fuel the obsession. According to Statisa.com, 44% of women in the United States say that reading is a main hobby of theirs.
Reading as a hobby is mainly a form of escapism, a way to leave behind the stresses of everyday life and step into another world for an hour. On top of being entertaining, it improves critical thinking skills, deepens empathy and can improve a reader’s creativity and imagination.
There are multiple components that make up a fiction book: plot, characters, setting, tropes, genre, theme and the artistry that comes with all of these. They all come together and create one coherent storyline that can bend and change across genres and through writers. There is the question, however, that readers should ask themselves–what part is actually most important when it comes to books? What is the part that truly draws readers in?
The first main component of a book is the plot, which is the main storyline of a book. The plot contains the action, the climax and the intertwining stories that create the overall narrative of the entire story.
Cheryl Collier, who is the associate dean of the school of humanities and sciences and a professor of English at North Greenville University, said, “I find that an interesting plot and dynamic are elements that draw me to a book and keep me engaged.”
She gave the example of “Absalom Absalom!” by William Faulkner and “A Gathering of Old Men” by Ernest Gaines as books that do this well.
“Absalom Absalom!” follows a man and his rise and fall building a plantation dynasty. “A Gathering of Old Men” is about a group of elderly black men who come together to protect a younger black man who is accused of murdering a white farmer. Both stories explore a plot that dives deep into racial prejudice.
Another very large part of a book are the characters. These are essentially the players of a book who the plot is happening to and those who control the narrative. These people or animals drive the plot forward with their actions. Characters give the reader someone to root for and someone to root against, effectively falling deeper into the story.
Angela Bullard, associate professor of English at NGU, says that characters are the most important part of the book.
“If you can’t relate to the characters, the plot doesn’t matter,” she said. “They’re what connects us.”
The setting of a story is a driving force behind the story as it tells the audience where it takes place and this can really push the narrative forward. The surroundings of the characters can create new problems and conflicts for them.
The setting also describes the time period where a book takes place. This could be a modern setting, a historical one or a dystopian or future setting. The time, the technology of that time and the main places the characters go greatly shape what they are able to do and therefore how the plot moves forward.
The setting can also then play into the genre of the book. A genre is a categorization that groups books of similar types together. There are many broad genres such as action, thriller, fantasy and romance. There are also subgenres of these larger categories like disaster, paranormal, high fantasy, urban fantasy and gothic romance.
These are meant to help readers narrow down the thousands of books that are published every year and decide what they are going to spend their limited time on. Many online readers read a variety of genres, but have a few favorites that they continue to go back to time and time again.
Describing a book with tropes is a fairly new phenomenon that came with the marketing books on the internet. These can describe scenes and characters to help the book appeal to as wide or small of a range as possible. It’s recurring in many books and could be compared to a cliché or an archetype, but it’s not as simplistic and overdone.
A few popular examples of this are: the chosen one, a questionable utopia, enemies to lovers and fake dating.
Themes are a very large part of books as they are meant to be the lesson that the readers take away from the story.
Bullard explained themes as such, “It’s not just a universal truth, like good overcomes evil or love prevails, but it’s what the author is saying about that universal truth.”
There are both implicit and explicit themes and ways that authors express that through their characters, their actions and the symbolism.
Graphics and visuals are also a huge part of marketing books in today’s digital climate. Thriftbooks, a second hand online bookstore, ran an online poll where they found that 57% of Americans often buy books based on their cover and 96% are typically satisfied with the content of that book.
Skye Mincy, a sophomore psychology major at NGU, said that she judges a book by its cover and the graphics are the biggest reason as to why she reaches for a book in the first place.
“I think that Harry Potter and Percy Jackson do it very well. There are captivating elements on the cover that translate to an action filled story.”
All of these parts come together to create a cohesive story that readers can not only learn from, but escape into. Each of these elements serve a different job and have their own importance within the book–if one is missing the story is incomplete. They each have their own draw and a person can choose their favorite parts and what keeps them engaged in the story.
