Hmm...ok. I can see you don't perceive it the way I do. That's fine. I'm not trying to sway you to my point of view. It was a perception statement, my bias, or point of view, I didn't say anyone else had to think this, it's just what I think. What I classify as "good writing" (my own internal perspective of this phrase) never happens with a bad story. I have never come across something that I thought had amazing writing quality but had poor plot and theme and organization. I was trying to expand on that perception by describing a little of what I see as good writing, as a way to highlight why to me good writing and a good story are indeed holding hands. Maybe it's also because I don't see the aspects of well written prose and telling a good story as separate entities, more like two sides to the same coin. To be able to tell a story out loud to a group of people, to have them hanging on your every word, requires being a wordsmith. Grammar and rules of prose don't get thrown out the window just because the words spoken and not written. There is pause, there punctuation, there is story structure and other various rules we apply to the craft. With my mixed media background I just see the art of storytelling as a much larger thing than just good or bad written prose. My definition of a great movie with a great story, is one where I don't feel like I just watched a movie, but actually lived beside the characters and got lost in their world for two hours. I don't come across those types of movies that just floor me with their brilliance. As part of an audience I want to be captivated, emotionally invested, and totally oblivious to the method of storytelling, written, verbal, visual... A book with a story that has the potential to be great, but it's wrapped in a layer of bad writing, will probably get one read through and will get tossed in the "sell" book box. A book with a bad storyline and bad writing...doesn't even make it out of the bookstore. But when I pick up a book at the store, thumb through the first few pages and find that I am so engrossed in the book that quickly, I must buy it. I've just never seen a book by my definitions of great writing that had a bad story. I think there's a level that a writer gets to, where the writing and the story are nicely blended and the great writing and great story just go together like Peas and Carrots. I strive for great writing. Stories, those are a dime a dozen, it's understanding the writing techniques that create the captivation while at the same time blending in the emotional investment levels with the characters and actual events taking place in the story. I'll never be a great writer....because I'll never be done learning. There will always be room for improvement, it's like sex, if you're always working to be better at it, you'll never be that bad.
