Pete Peterson writes about the shape of good stories. “So what makes a story work? … Transformers<\/i>\u2014didn\u2019t work. District 9<\/i>\u2014did work. Star Wars<\/i>\u2014worked. Battle Beyond the Stars<\/i>\u2014didn\u2019t work. Interview with a Vampire<\/i>\u2014worked. Twilight<\/i>\u2014well\u2026I say it didn\u2019t work. It\u2019s harder to play this game with books because books that don\u2019t work quickly fade into obscurity and we never even hear of them, but trust me, for every Gilead<\/i> there\u2019s another diary-based memoir out there that\u2019s an interminable bore.”<\/p>\n
I wasted a couple hours of my life watching Battle Beyond the Stars<\/i>. I’m sure I saw an edited for TV version, because looking back on it, it looks much worse than the slock I remember. On the other side of the spectrum, I stopped reading Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw<\/i>, because the pacing is just too slow. Don’t look at me that way. I know I’m losing my English major street cred. I’m not happy about it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Pete Peterson writes about the shape of good stories. “So what makes a story work? … Transformers\u2014didn\u2019t work. District 9\u2014did work. Star Wars\u2014worked. Battle Beyond the Stars\u2014didn\u2019t work. Interview with a Vampire\u2014worked. Twilight\u2014well\u2026I say it didn\u2019t work. It\u2019s harder to play this game with books because books that don\u2019t work quickly fade into obscurity and … Continue reading Why Do Some Stories Work?<\/span>