In the realm of games, it is widely acknowledged that different people enjoy different aspects of games, and for different reasons. There are several theories that attempt to describe different kinds of fun or different player types. Marc LeBlanc has his theory of 8 kinds of fun: Sensation, Fantasy, Narrative, Challenge, Fellowship, Discovery, Expression, and Submission. Then there’s Bartle’s taxonomy, which classifies players of online multiplayer games into four types: Achievers, Explorers, Socializers, or Killers. In Magic: The Gathering people commonly discuss Johnny, Timmy, and Spike, three archetypes of what people like about the game.
If we can recognize that different people enjoy different aspects of games, then we can also recognize that different people also enjoy different aspects of stories. This may seem like a trivial point, but one that we rarely think about directly.
I think the different ways of enjoying games are more obvious because they often result in different player behaviors, but the different ways of enjoying stories tend to be invisible. Invisible… except in fandom. So, if you wanted to go looking for theories of how different people enjoy fiction for different reasons, I believe the place to look is in fandom. Unfortunately, I don’t actually involve myself in any fandoms, but I’m sure some of my readers do, so I’d be happy to hear from you.
For now, I’ll just toss a few preliminary ideas around.
One idea I’ve heard, is curative vs transformative fandom. Curative fandom is all about curating and organizing the information available in canon, while transformative fandom is about changing canon through transformative works such as fanfics, art, or cosplay. This dichotomy seems straightforward enough, although parochial in perspective. Fanworks and fanwikis are common enough in fandom, but neither is an integral part of how people enjoy stories outside of fandom!
Another idea I had, is that some people might focus on characters, some on world building, or plot, or theme. For example, shipping is a very character-centric activity. Learning about all the different spaceships in Star Wars is a very world-centric activity. Scrutinizing all a story’s details to find clues to a mystery is a plot-centric activity. Thinking about what a show is trying to say about being queer is a theme-centric activity.
I like this classification mostly because it seems explanatory of my own taste in fiction. For example, I recently wrote about how other people like shipping characters together, but I like seeing characters break up. One big reason for shipping is that people emotionally relate to the characters, and want to see that emotional resolution. I very rarely “relate” to characters, so I tend to think unhappy resolutions are just as valid as happy ones. And I like breakup stories because I like anti-relationship themes.
Here’s another example: Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality (HPMOR), a popular fanfic in which Harry Potter is absurdly hyperrational. I think HPMOR is instructive because it delivers on some story dimensions much better than others, and this results in divided opinions. I recently saw a friend talking about how much she didn’t like HPMOR, because the characters were obnoxious and unrealistic. She described it as practically a different genre of fanfic, because most people enjoy fanfic for emotional continuity and characterization.
I read HPMOR several years back, and I liked parts of it. At its best, it was a hilarious dialectic on critical thinking, with Harry Potter delivering didactic lessons while also behaving so absurdly that one had to question how good the lessons really were. What left me cold, was how the author spends chapters and chapters making each obstacle seem impossible to overcome, and each solution arise from established facts about the world. And at some point I just don’t care what weird plot shit Harry Potter uses to solve each problem!
So you might say that HPMOR was interested in plot, and to a lesser extent theme. Since I’m interested in theme I partially enjoyed it, and since my friend was interested in characters she didn’t like it at all.
Any thoughts?
Alternatively, one reader can focus on different aspects of some story based on what kind of book they are reading. When I’m reading a detective novel, I generally focus on the plot. If the detective or some of the suspects are fascinating characters with interesting personalities, then that’s a nice bonus, but usually this is not the case. Occasionally I find some book with a really fascinating protagonist. Then I’m willing to read the book just to enjoy the antics of this character. With some other books, I’m more interested in the world building, for example, Pokemon: The Origin of Species by Daystar Eld (this is a fanfic somewhat similar to HPMOR). In this book, I find the characters okay, they are relatable and likeable enough, but I wouldn’t be reading this fanfic just for the characters. Plot is also okay, but nothing unheard of. The real reason why I liked this book was the world building—I can appreciate a fantasy book set in an internally consistent world with a magic system that remains consistent over time and characters don’t just randomly pull solutions for problems out of their ass.
Anyway, it’s rare for me to find a single book where I enjoy everything about it. More often than not, I like some aspects of a book while some others are just lacklustre.
I found characters in HPMOR normal and relatable. The way how they looked at the world and thought was pretty similar to how I tend to think. Sure, their rationality was somewhat exaggerated compared to me, but they were still very relatable. What I find obnoxious and impossible to relate to is the average female protagonist of a romance novel. These protagonists are emotion-obsessed, they cry all the time, they make dumb decisions, they are just obnoxious as hell. I can relate to somebody like Hannibal Lecter or characters from HPMOR, but when I’m confronted with the average romance novel protagonist, I don’t even want to relate to her because of how much I dislike her, because her way of thinking is just alien for me. My point being: readers are different, thus they also find different characters realistic and relatable.
Yep, same goes for me.
I really liked a character who was rational and at least tried to make sensible decisions. Simultaneously, I didn’t enjoy the plot being interrupted by long definitions of logical fallacies that I already know about. I have already read some textbooks about logics, I don’t need the same material in the middle of a novel.
I like fantasy novels with internally consistent magic systems where protagonists cannot just pull miracles out of their ass whenever the plot demands it. Solutions arising from established facts about the world seems like a good thing to me. But, I do want said solutions not to be totally obvious. If I can already predict how the “impossible problem” will get solved several chapters before the protagonists finally figure out a solution, then I get bored and frustrated by the stupidity of the protagonists.
I read the linked discussion thread, and, wow, that was insulting.
Some people are more emotional, others less so. Your friend shouldn’t insult a writer for creating characters who feel less than the average amount of emotions. Nor should they insult readers who can relate to such protagonists.
Just some quotes from that thread:
Bullshit. Not all people who feel less than the average amount of emotions are depressive and dysfunctional. I have reasons to believe that my own emotional experiences are somewhat subdued compared to the average person. On top of that, I’m completely unable to feel some emotions at all. I mean, I cannot directly compare my own ability to feel emotions with that of somebody else, but I do know that novels often feature protagonists feeling emotional experiences that I have never felt in my own life. Anyway, other people don’t get to insult me just because I’m less emotional than they are.
And
Wow, now they are getting really insulting. Stating that you prefer reading books with highly emotional characters is fine. After all, I’m making similar statements by saying the exact opposite, namely that I like more rational characters.
But nobody should ever make statements about the writer’s gender. Firstly, stating that “women are emotional and men are rational” is an extremely misogynistic statement. “Male writers are such and such, female writers are such and such” is also unacceptable. Each human being is an individual, and you don’t get to group them by gender and make such wide and incorrect statements.
I tend to play with reversing statements and seeing if the opposite feels insulting for anybody. I might try to reverse these statements, here’s what I’m getting: “It’s insufferable, the length to which female writers will make their characters emotion-obsessed and irrational,” or “fanfic sounds exactly like the kind of obnoxious emotional women wank-off that i too loathe.” Such statements would be offensive, which is why I would never say anything like this. I can say that I dislike reading books with very emotional protagonists, but I would never insult any other person for liking such books, nor would I insult some writer for writing them. It’s okay if people have different preferences. Moreover, one should never equate a writer’s or reader’s gender with their preference for more or less emotional characters. Those are individual preferences and they have nothing to do with the shape of somebody’s genitalia or gender identity.
@Andreas Avester #2,
Yeah, I had similar feelings about Sciatrix’s post, but I wasn’t going to complain I was just going to quietly revise the framing, haha.
“Different people enjoy different fiction in different ways” is one of those things that seems ostensibly self-evident in some ways, and yet people also seem to forget about it sometimes? Can’t even count the number of times I’ve seen somebody assert something like “Well the way a tragedy is *supposed* to work is that it gives you emotional release. If it doesn’t do that, then it’s doing something wrong, because that’s the only way that a good tragedy story is experienced”…
I think most typically the divisions of different-types-of-enjoyment I’ve seen mentioned offhand — but not really discussed, usually — are divisions along genres or, for lack of a better term, genre particles… action, drama, romance, etc. Seems pretty common for people to be able to say which of those kinds of things they like. But that’s kind of more of an “object of like” rather than a “*way* of liking,” isn’t it?
So on that thought, some other ways of liking, off the top of my head:
–Processing without following. Not caring to know what anyone’s names are or what’s actually going on, but just getting lost in something dizzying or unfamiliar. I’ve done this sometimes with stories I don’t really care about or which, I have a hunch, I would like *less* if I was actually following the details, so I’m happy to start watching in the middle when I’ve missed most of the exposition. I suspect this is also one of the ways that some people like to watch big-budget action movies that are low on plot anyway.
–Mystery solving. Trying to beat the plot twist to the punch. Figuring out whodunnit. In some ways this way is best suited to mystery stories, where you can be actively guessing over the course of the episode or a book and have a resolution by the end, but I’ve also seen approaches like this to long-running TV shows that may not primarily be mysteries but do keep the fandom guessing over eventual plot revelations. Some people seem to really enjoy cooking up theories based on their analysis. Can even apply to stories that are already “over,” like with the movie Inception.
–Pattern spotting. Not to be confused with mystery solving, some pattern spotting isn’t necessarily about “guessing” anything, just analyzing what’s happened after the fact. Here be your TVTropes cataloging and so on. For me, it’s fun thinking about how some plotlines or character arcs are more typical or atypical than others. This is a way of enjoyment that can be applied to almost anything, but for me, it’s more, hm, rewarding, I guess you could say, with stories that feel like they offer more to work with.
–Endorsement or condemnation. I’d be remiss not to include this one. Some people… really seem to get a kick out of proclaiming a given story “good” or “bad,” in any of the sense of the words. This kind of talk is common, but I don’t think I see it acknowledged much as a *way of enjoying,* except for in the classic phrase “so bad it’s good.”
Siggy
I think this is a useful way of analysing what one likes, I’ve certainly seen both reviews and comments where books have been discussed in these terms and the reviewer/commenter have expressed their like or dislike of the book because of good /poor charactisation/plot/worldbuilding as they tended to focus on whichever they are praising/slamming in their reading. I agree with Andreas that the different elements have greater importance in different genres, and for me getting good all three in any genre is what makes a great book rather than a good book.
Andreas
This view suggest to me that you have done very little reading in this genre, and what you have done is probably of older books. Romance is a huge field with many sub-genres, and while a few authors like to write pathetic female characters many more do not. If you are interested in reading more assertive or even competant female romance characters you could have a look at Smart Bitches Trashy Books https://smartbitchestrashybooks.com/ for some ideas or at the books of someone like Beverley Cole. These days there are even a few ace romances to be found.
Siggy @#3
Framing makes a huge difference here. “People are different, and they also like different books,” is fine. “People who don’t think like me are living in denial about their own emotions,” is offensive.
By the way, I look at the world very differently than your friend does. I find highly rational novel characters so easy to identify with, because I think there’s no reason for there to be a dichotomy between reason and emotions. Under normal circumstances, a person’s emotional desires and rational considerations should motivate this person to choose one and the same course of action. It’s rational for a person to pursue their own happiness. For example, I enjoy spending time with dogs, thus it is rational for me to get a dog. I enjoy having a boyfriend, thus it is rational for me to invest my time and effort into maintaining a relationship. When my emotional desires and rational considerations clash, I see that as a symptom that something has gone wrong with my life. It’s a cue that I need to pause and reconsider what I’m doing with my life—what are my motivations and values, why am I doing what I’m doing. For example, back when I had a real job, I felt miserable. So I had to reconsider my priorities, I realized that I value free time higher than money, so I got a part time job instead and just learned to live with below average income.
The only clashes between my emotional desires and rational considerations are caused by me having different short-term versus long-term interests. Right now I might desire to relax and go to a beach, but my future self would rather prefer me to instead use this time I have right now for getting some chores done without stalling. Other than that, my emotional desires and rational considerations just do not clash under normal circumstances. Of course, fiction does create all sorts of unordinary circumstances under which it’s reasonable for a character to have various motivations that can result in them feeling really shitty about something that they are doing (for example, just throw your fictional novel character in a war zone where they have to fight for their survival, and they will be doing all kinds of things they feel bad about).
I understand that for me aligning my emotional desires with rational considerations is very easy, because I’m an atheist, I don’t care about concepts like honor or patriotism, and so on. It’s an entirely different situation for a believer whose pastor tells them that God hates gays, yet they still feel sympathy towards their childhood friend who turned out to be gay. Anyway, my entire outlook towards the world is extremely rational, I really do think like characters from rational fanfics, I analyze my options, I think about what to do, I’m never impulsive, I don’t just immediately act upon some feeling; this works perfectly fine for me, because most of the time my emotional desires happen to neatly align with whatever I have decided.
Jazzlet @#5
Yes, I have noticed that older books tend to be worse than newer ones. And it’s not just the misogyny seeping out of them. For instance, The Sorrows of Young Werther by Goethe is a book with a ridiculously sensitive and overly emotional male protagonist.
Anyway, a female protagonist who is assertive and competent doesn’t fix the other reasons why I have never liked any of the romances I have read. The entire genre is required to have a collection of standard tropes that just bore me. I would be perfectly happy to read a book about two protagonists who are both scientists and friends with benefits who just like to fuck each other despite not actually being in love. However, such a premise wouldn’t make this kind of book a romance novel. All the standard romance novel tropes like protagonists actually being in love is something I just don’t care about.
I enjoy reading erotica. But the thing is that I just don’t care about the relationship itself that’s presented in the book. I’m reading erotica for the fucking just like I watch porn movies for the fucking and I don’t really care much about the plot or there being love between the protagonists. In my search for erotica to read, I frequently accidentally run into books that are less about sex scenes and more about the relationship and love between the protagonists. The latter are just boring for me.
Ya, this is still the best explanation I can get for why anyone (never mind most people) liked The Force Awakens at all.
I guess most people like action and what I’d call “energetic/fun social-interaction stuff”, like jokes, quips, behavior, and so on. I hesitate to call them “characters”, because they barely had any character imo (in stark contrast to the original Star Wars).
This is a great post and something I wish people talked about more, probably because I tend to both not like shipping and still hang around transformative fandom spaces mostly … I do find genfic to usually be able to cater to my tastes though. I think I personally tend to enjoy fiction in both character and world/theme focused ways? but the character part is difficult to pinpoint because I highly prefer platonic dynamics and there’s not much of that compared to romance. As for the world/theme focused part, I think a lot of my favorite stories are “social” sci-fi in which there’s a society that has different mores and power dynamics than my own (e.g. The Left Hand of Darkness, Too Like the Lightning). I find those very fun to think about.
I remember I tried to read HPMOR a while ago, and then decided it was way too long and I’d rather just read the nonfiction sequences by the same author, and then I also never finished that, so. But the themes and mode of thinking did very much appeal to me; I’m not unfinished because lack of curiosity, just an inability to finish my TBR.
I followed that HPMOR link and had to reorient myself because I’ve read the beginning of the sequences quite a lot and the most memorable thing I’ve gotten from it was ‘rationality is not ignoring your emotions, it’s being aware of them and taking them into account’ though, what I remember of HPMOR didn’t address that/didn’t have very emotive characters. My impressions of Yud-style rationality are probably also very much influenced by the rat-adjacent bloggers on the tumblrosphere and Scott Alexander on SSC, who can give off very different vibes than Yudkowskey (or however you spell his name).
I wonder what your friend would think of Alicornfic/glowfic, which would be rational fic written mostly by women and afab people. I remember liking ‘in color’ a lot better than HPMOR, although stories involving Amenta are by default those sorts of ‘societies with different power dynamics’ that I’m inclined to enjoy, and the stories I think are still more theme/world/plot focused than character focused.