What Is A “So What?” Story?
I was recently discussing a story with a student of mine who had gotten the “so what?” response in workshop. If you’ve never heard that term, it sounds harsher than it is, and in the right context is actually a legitimate critique.
I’ve been over this several times with many of my students and I think it’s an important thing for any writer to understand.
A “so what?” story is one where there is no change to anything based on the events of the story. The characters make no consequential decisions, their actions do nothing to alter any aspect of the world of the story. Things might happen, but there is no rhetorical purpose to them happening. Readers are moved to ask why they read the story at all, or, “so what?”
Here are a few common reasons I’ve seen for “so what?” stories:
- The main character has no agency. Things seem to happen to this character rather than the character consciously acting and reaction based on events in the story. It’s a pretty boring story when someone has bad things happen to them and then just takes it.
- The plots points aren’t really related. Two things happening at roughly the same time does not mean there’s a reason for them to happen at the same time — it could just be coincidence. If there’s a kitchen fire and a dead dog, but the fire didn’t kill the dog, that’s not really a story as much a piling up misery.
- The story ends very badly. This could be a deus ex machina situation, or an unsatisfying fizzle, but if the ending doesn’t satisfy then the reader will wonder why they spent so much time with that story.
There are other scenarios that lead to a “so what?” feeling, for sure, but those are the big ones I’ve seen.
So when you write, make sure your characters are making consequential choices, acting in a way that has an effect on the scenario of the story, and reacting to anything that might happen to them. Like most things with storytelling, it all comes back to characters, and when you imbue them with agency most other problems get solved along the way.
This isn’t a guarantee that a story will be good, but probably if you focus on these things no one will read it and ask, “so what?”
