3 Things I Love in a Good Story // Jessica Prescott

from Jessica Prescott 

1. Female characters I can respect and admire. 

This is extremely important for me—a novel whose female characters I find myself unable to truly admire will never make it onto my “favorites” list. Obviously, I’d like to be able to respect the male characters, too; but the female characters are even more important to me—mostly because I’m a woman and I gotta have me some role models, peoples. 

The heroines I admire and respect most are those who possess the following three qualities: good sense, kindness, and patience. Kindness and patience are particularly important—I’m all for “spirited” female characters, but only if “spirited” isn’t just another term for “needlessly belligerent.” I get especially irritated by heroines who seem to spend the entire first half of the novel quarreling with the hero whenever they’re on stage together. Really, that’s just unnecessary. And unkind. (And yes, Lizzy Bennet, I’m talking to you.) 

2. Romantic relationships that I can get behind. 

Like most female readers, I tend to get very heavily invested in fictional romances—and for this reason, it’s important to me that these relationships be ones which I can wholeheartedly support and approve of. This not only means they must be clean and wholesome (no messing around before the marriage, please, thankyouveryverymuch), but it also means there must be solid evidence that the two people truly care about each other and actually have a good chance of forming a compatible partnership. If these requirements are not satisfied, I’m quite likely to toss the book aside in disgust.

For instance, I just finished reading an Agatha Christie novel in which the main female character spent most of the book wavering between two suitors—one of whom I loved (because he was awesome) and the other one I hated (because he was horrible). And for the last third of the book, I was in mortal terror that she was going to pick the awful one and be miserable for the rest of her life. Now of course, Agatha Christie being Agatha Christie, she kept me hanging until the very last page, when the girl finally decided to marry the nice guy—and I was like, “thanks, now I can breathe again.” 

3. Vivid sensory description. 

Ever since I was a small girl reading Little House and Heidi, I’ve absolutely loved those writers who can manage to paint a beautiful, delightful, scrumptious picture using only the power of words. I think that’s really one of the main reason I read—for those moments when the author makes you see something in your mind as vividly as if he or she were showing you an actual photo. 

Ironically, sensory description is one thing I’m not terribly good at in my own writing—but I certainly know how to appreciate it in other authors. Some of my absolute favorite examples of this are in Willa Cather’s novels Death Comes For the Archbishop and Shadows On the Rock. There’s one special description of a sunset in Shadows that you could literally live on for a week. I think that’s the kind of thing Emily Dickinson was talking about when she wrote that famous poem of hers: “He ate and drank the precious words / His spirit grew robust / He knew no more that he was poor / Nor that his frame was dust . . .”

Note from Heidi: Thank you so much for sharing, Jessica! :)

~     ~     ~ 

And... would you like to share three of your favorite things in a guest post? You don’t have to be a writer to qualify! This series is by story lovers for story lovers.
For post specifics/guidelines you can see the initial post here, then send Heidi a quick email at ladyofanorien(at)gmail(dot)com. Don’t be shy. I’d love to have you!