Do you think it's possible to write a perfect story?

Worthy39

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I'm not saying it's a story everyone will like, people have genre preferences, disliking flawed characters is common, and some people are just haters. But do you think it's possible for someone to write a story that wouldn't have anything to really pick apart? Amazing character development, good pacing, a well written story, and simply just good writing? A story that fans of the genre simply couldn't find an issue with? Why, or why not?
 

thegingernut

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No. Writing isn't math. Your response to a story will always be informed by your lived experience.

Even if you had a theoretically flawless story, there's a genre of people who can't get into a story if there's nothing to pick apart. Its fun doing an autopsy on how a story went wrong. Hell, that's how a lot of fanfictions happen.

In math, you can have a target value like pi, and you can have formulas that take you closer to its actual value. In writing… it really doesn't work that way.
 

TheDraconeaWriter

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No, because tastes are different.

Whether it is based on where you were born, how you were raised, what your education was like, what you believe is right and wrong, or even something like why you read, will differ from person to person.

A perfect book will never exist because no matter how good a book is, there will always be a critic. Someone who didn't like how you wrote a character, someone who felt a situation should have gone differently, or even if your story talks about a subject that winds up the reader, there will always be that critic somewhere to strike out.
 

Jerynboe

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Yes, if your definition of perfect is that there are no technical flaws and any problems people have are matters of taste. Getting people to AGREE on what stories are perfect is a very different question, especially since a flawless story might actually be less satisfying than a story that has undeniable technical problems might be more satisfying for someone with properly calibrated tastes who just doesn’t CARE about those flaws but does care about things that the story does very well in another area.
 

Pokermaster

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Well yes, there are several stories widely regarded as perfect, in poland there is for example then well know polish captain bomb yeti story, but for shorter and more compact examples:

Do you know the story of the mute michael who chew a bublegum so hard, he went blind?

The end, its sad, but meeh he was deaf from birth already. .

But seriously, it is almost impossible to do becouse in order for the story to have nothing to pick apart, it would need to incorporate everything it could, and behind every succes in writting a very good book, there is a trade off, becouse you practically cant write a very good book without making one, without leaving some things in order to focus on others.

You can forcefully write an absolutely middle, mildly good book, incorlorating everything it could, but then it could be criticized as mipd it is, incorporate less, people will point their lack, incorlorate more, people will point there are too much, unnecessary draggin and delaying the better parts.

Basically if you write a story, you... dont write different story, and you cant have everything in 1 story and not drag it so much its boring.

You can not write a story with both every part of it being perfect, and the story as a whole being perfect, either you write less and better, or more and worse.

But you can only aim and hope for it. And you should.

But what you can actually do is making sure no part of the story will be bad. Dont get lazy, dont choose the easy way, it is tempting to focus on main themes and just make other less imortant parts shitty, but it impacts the whire story, and you have to make sure you tteat all larts as important, some less importatnt than the others, but still important.

You cant write a perfectly good story, but you can write one that is perfectly not bad. Dont fixate on the perfection but dont disregard it completly.

If i had to answer your main question directly yes you can write a stiry that is perfect in one genre.

The problem is every genre can be divided into sub genres almost infinitely, so the story is pefect only for as long as someone does not do that. And opposite genres can not coexist, well they can but Its like the nonbinary problem, you divide to binary and nobinary creating another binary system, and so it goes infinitely. You create a tag where the opposite tags and tropes coexist, immedietely dividing stories to ones where they coexist and where they dont.

And it will eventually get old anyway, even without division the ideals of fans of one and the same genre will change over time.

So you can write a perfect story, but it is bound to stop being percect as the criteria of perfection change over time.
 

georgelee5786

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It is possible. Story quality is objective, so you can make a story that fulfills your criteria in an objectively perfect way.
 

Ellie_in_Pink

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I don't think it's a problem people need to worry about. As we'll never be close enough for it to matter. What we should focus on is simply honing our craft to a point where it competently accomplishes what we want it to.

To be more purple about it, I think a perfect book would be like a perfect painting. Devoid of brushstrokes. And yet the brushstrokes are arguable what make a painting most beautiful
 

CharlesEBrown

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Of course it is possible, has happened and can't happen - and there is no contradiction.
Every story may be perfect to someone. No story will be perfect for everyone.
Yeah the bible
Given that "bible" literally means "book" yes.
BUT the Christian Bible is not, or there wouldn't be so bloody many versions - The New English Version, the King James Version, the Dead Sea Scrolls, The Revised Standard Edition etc...
Even if it is the literal Word of God, it has been recorded, translated, and, most importantly, interpreted by humans, imperfect beings with their own goals and ways of looking at things and using those things.
And this is true of other great sacred texts as well - the Torah (which is included in MOST but not ALL versions of The Bible - and has its own "forbidden section," the Qabalah), the Koran, the Bhagavad Gita, the I Ching etc.
 

JayMark

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A perfect story has bulls in it. Without bulls, it can't be a perfect story.
 

Kigol

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yes, in theory a story that everyone loves (even the people who hate whatever genre can make a sole exception) can be made

but it will never exist because books killed my grandma
 

Frestea

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The problem with perfection is how it can't get better, only worse. Look at Avatar and how the Legends of Korra ruined it.
 

MFontana

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I'm not saying it's a story everyone will like, people have genre preferences, disliking flawed characters is common, and some people are just haters. But do you think it's possible for someone to write a story that wouldn't have anything to really pick apart? Amazing character development, good pacing, a well written story, and simply just good writing? A story that fans of the genre simply couldn't find an issue with? Why, or why not?
No, but if it were, that'd be a pretty damn boring story.
 

blackcrowcrowd

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I don't think it's a problem people need to worry about. As we'll never be close enough for it to matter. What we should focus on is simply honing our craft to a point where it competently accomplishes what we want it to.

To be more purple about it, I think a perfect book would be like a perfect painting. Devoid of brushstrokes. And yet the brushstrokes are arguable what make a painting most beautiful
This. If we were only trying to create a 'perfect' story, just get an AI to make one. Give it rules and formulas and good enough model (afaik no AI is that good YET. But just hypothetically speaking we have a very advanced AI...), then it can generate any random 'perfect' story.
Yeah the bible
You do not want to start a discussion on whether the current modern bible is perfect.
 

ManwX

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Writing a perfect story is completely subjective. Perfect story can't exist, no matter how you look at a story. There will be someone who won't like it or has issues with it.
 

Nevafrost

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Oh man! All the talks about flaws got me thinking about rereading Harry Potter. A true flawed masterpiece.
 
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