Of Stories and Doritos · 2:18am Aug 12th, 2021
I like to read, both physical books and on-line stories. In a little over a year since I joined FimFiction.net (June 2020) my Completed Completed list has climbed to over 480 stories.
What's interesting is that there are way too many I don't remember reading. The title, short description, even the long description often don't help. I know I've read 'em because they're on the list, but I'll have to re-read them to refresh my memory.
Furthermore, I notice it's usually the shorter "one-shot" stories that I have slipped away. Those under 5K words, especially the really short ones under 2K. It's as if there's just not enough content in such a short story to be memorable.
Reading one-shot stories is like eating a bag of Doritos (Nacho Cheese, of course). You know you ate them because the bag is empty. But you don't actually remember eating any of them, well, beyond that one that poked you in the cheek.
There's nothing wrong with Doritos. I like 'em. It's just that they're basically empty calories. I wonder what the equivalent of 'empty calories' would be for a story? Perhaps a fluff piece?
So what is a Dorito story? What's the difference between a story being enjoyable, and it also being memorable? I believe that to be memorable, a story has to touch you at some emotional level. It's not enough to enjoy it, you also have to "feel" it. You can see this in a lot of TV shows. You watch a series because you enjoy it. But thinking back, how many specific episodes do you actually remember? I think sitcoms are the biggest offender here.
So how do my own stories (both published, and those sitting in the edit queue) compare to a Dorito? The shortest is only 2.4K and very probably a Dorito story. The three in the 5K-10K range are questionable. It kind of depends on what sort of connection the reader has made with the protagonists over the course of the series. All the rest are in the 10K-20K range and hopefully not all Doritos.
Unfortunately, there's no way to poll readers in a year to find out if they remember any of the stories.
Footnote: there's been a disturbance in the force of editing, so my usual publishing schedule has been thoroughly obliterated. I'm not sure when they'll start flowing again. Eventually...
I'm afraid your stories will never make it as Doritos.
They just aren't... cheesy enough.
In all seriousness, along with the moments of high emotional content, I also remember specific scenes and unexpected turns in stories. For example, in High-Water Mark, when Heavy Pony positioned himself downstream of the teleport point and used his earth pony size and strength to resist the flowing current, I thought to myself, "Oh, that's cool. That makes perfect sense and I didn't see it coming. The author really thought this out."
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Cool Ranch Doritos perhaps?
But thanks for your comment. It's gratifying to know that someone enjoyed a story. And honestly, the three best stories I have are yet to be published (two of them in the Dark Steel spin-off series).