How to properly Evaluate a story.

     Each story has a purpose  or goal and that's why we categorize them under different genres such as comedy, horror,  Sci fi, fantasy, Romance.  Here are a few examples and how we can use the category to evaluate a story.

     Was the story intended to be comical? Did it use proper methods that make most people laugh? Or did it employ certain attempts at eliciting laughter that are generally considered inappropriate and provoke horror instead?  If indeed it provoked other emotions other than humor, then it obviously failed in its effort.

   The same principle applies to adventure. If the story is intended to exhilarate the reader by providing adventure, and only manages to present people  engaged in boring conversations, for most of the time, then once again how can it be classified as a good story since it failed in its prime objective? Because it has a happy ending?

     Was the story under the strict horror category but made you laugh instead?  Is the story trying to elicit anger, admiration, yearning, determination to reach a social goal, to encourage these emotions but doesn't.

Once again if it does not, then it has failed.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

     

     Then there is grammar and punctuation.  Yes, grammar does count because without it, what the writer saying might become extremely difficult to understand. Ever read a story that has run-on sentences without period or any other capitalization and absolutely no paragraphing?  Just one big  undifferentiated mass of text maybe several thousand words long, staring back at you? 

    Can we as readers be expected to read such a story and go through the arduous process of trying to figure out what the hell the author is talking about? Does such story indeed deserve the Awesome or the great vote? 

       Sure, we might like what the author is trying to convey. But does the author really deserve to be commended with the "Job well done!" and the AWSOME vote  of encouragement after presenting such a visual disaster? Are we not doing him more harm than good by encouraging him to continue along those lines only to have his manuscripts tossed immediately in the rejection bin after just one glance from a publishing house editor?

    Imagery is the written description of taste, odor, color, sound, form and  texture .  Lack of such imagery is yet another serious flaw that disqualifies a story as being great or awesome.  You see,  a reader is blind to what we are seeing in our heads as writers. So they depend on us to lead  them the by the hand via providing the essential details necessary for visualization. 

     For example,  Dog? What kind of a dog? A Pitt Bull? A Chihuahua?  Girl? What kind of girl? Blonde? Brunette? Chubby? What specific age?   House? What kind of house? A row house? A mansion?  Man, what kind of man? Old? Bearded? Swarthy? White?  Round- faced?  Chiseled features? European features?  Speaks how? Deep voice? High pitched?  Eyes? Brooding? Threatening? Friendly? Green? Brown? Blue? 

    Yet we have short stories which provide no imagery at all.  Instead, they refer to people by first names such as Joe, Bill , Harry, Susan,  which conveys NOTHING, and so the reader sees nothing.  Please note that a Bill or Harry can be a child, an adult, an old man. They can be of any race, black, white, East Asian. etc.  They can be fat, slim, skinny, tall, short.  Their hair might be red, black, brown straight, curly, kinky, wavy. As readers we simply do not know and don't appreciate such essential details being revealed suddenly almost at the end of a story. It is a shock and forces a reader  to discard his own ideas of what the boy or group of boys, the house, the geographical location looked like. So these details are best revealed at the outset.

    In short, leaving details up to  each reader is not a characteristic of awesome or great writing even though the story endings might be a happy ones.