Plots? Or Stream-of-Consciousness? Which would you rather read?
This is one of the easiest questions I’ve seen on Booking Through Thursday. It’s plots. I love good stories, great twists, and epic battles. The plot is the spine of a book for me, and if the plot is weak–no matter how fun or realistically rendered the characters are–then the whole book is weak. I recently had a discussion with my brother over The Historian, which I despise and he loves, and I think that’s our main difference–my brother is a nonfiction kind of guy, so he enjoyed all the research that made the novel so bloated to me, and I found the story’s resolution nonexistent.
Stream-of-consciousness gives me flashbacks to reading Faulkner in high school. However, a book written in stream-of-consciousness can still have a good plot (Absalom, Absalom! is a prime example), so I feel that making a distinction between the two is a little disingenuous. Still, stream-of-consciousness is a choice that is rarely well done, and usually spooks me away from novels.
The Literary Omnivore 
Plotting is my answer, check it out [HERE]
Good points and I totally agree about The Historian. Our answers are Here.
I can forgive a weak plot if the character development is good or it stops and makes me think. This particular BTT question got me thinking about what stream of consciousness is, because sometimes I read plot-less books–in my mind though, they’re more character studies than anything else and I would hardly classify them as stream of consciousness. But overall, I do appreciate a plot-based story.
BTT: Straight Shot or Winding Road…
I don’t hate character studies, but I vastly prefer plots. Thanks for dropping by!
Plus, stream-of-consciousness tends to hang out with its horrible sibling, weird-or-no-punctuation. Which I absolutely hate.
Good Lord, weird-or-no-punctuation needs to be taken out immediately. Grammar is there for a reason.
LOL!!!! Although have you ever read Cry, the Beloved Country? It uses dashes instead of quotation marks for dialogue. On page one I thought I’d never be able to get through it, but by the time I got to page two I didn’t even notice any more. But that is a huge exception to the rule.