Chapter 9: The Sly and The Sensible
DISCLAIMER: I am being particular wuth regards to english translated online novels.
I am not sure if it just me or if there are others like me. But as I have recounted already, I began my reading experience devouring books like a hungry predator looling out for any prey it could find.
But it did not take long for me to be able to flesh out the characteristics of stories that were somehow compatible with my line of thought of how a story should go.
So basically, albeit rare and hard to find, I came across stories and storytelling that I found coming closer to becoming, for me, really compelling, because of the way they present their characters, preference given to the main characters of course, not as these brash, easily agitated, justice sensitive, muscle-brained show-offs that only know how to fight, but as cunning, calculative, manipulative, and sensible communicators that are really goal oriented and do rarely ever stray from that goal.
Yes, there are the occasional shootouts but that it is only to highlight the reality of the world that story, that it is not that forgiving to the weak. But beyond the fights, it is the negotiations, the leveraging and the compromises that really make up the meat of much of the, let us say, main character's interaction with the other inhabitants of the story's world.
It is also made much better because of how uneasy it becomes for the characters to navigate this type of world trying to survive and succeed, which to me is probably closer real storytelling than most I have so far, because of basically how hard it becomes for one character to discern the intentions of the characters he or she is interacting with.
It then no longer becomes a world that starkly makes you out to be either on this side or that, that you are good or you are evil, and that is black or it is white. Because it is a world that is full of grey, you become unsure of where you stand on, you question your choices, and your moral standing, you are neither on this side nor that, neither good nor evil, it is neither black nor white, and in this world nothing is for certain, and everything is up for grabs.
So astonishing are these stories characters from from anything I have read so for that it left me no choice but to put it in a whole new circle around which these stories revolve in, and i became hard-pressed to look away from those stories with that caliber of storytelling and have not found any other that could surpass theirs.
The story of a character's journey where their best of friends could turn out to be their greatest of adversaries, where snakes bide their time waiting to strike and lions do not stay on top forever, and when alliances rise and falter, and only their interests remains, and when nothing is for certain, and everything is up for grabs. I most definitely find the most fun of reading.
And I hope you do too.
What do you think? I would like to know your thoughts in the comments. Until then, peace.
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