So recently, I've become a bit enamored with 'stories'. Mostly, this has taken in the form of a mass consumption of anime; in this mass consumption, I've also been studying the plots of these stories and what 'makes them good', and for the most part, the really popular stories have one common similarity.

Of course, you have to have a protagonist the audience cheers for. But that's not what this blog is focusing on. Maybe I'll write about that, but not now.

Take a few common, massively popular anime: Naruto, One Piece, My Hero Academia, even One Punch Man. All of these stories have one thing in common: you know exactly how these stories are going to end. In Naruto, you know that Naruto will become the Hokage (which he does in the end, spoilers); in One Piece, you know Luffy will become Pirate King; in My Hero Academia, you know Deku will become the number one hero (as he states in the very first episode of the anime and manga, I believe); in One Punch Man, you know that Saitama is going to emerge from every single confrontation victorious.

Here's why they work out: because you don't have to focus on the 'what will happen', but the 'how it happens'.

This is obvious, but when you're telling a story, you want to tell the story all the way through. One good way to ensure this is to keep the audience attached to the story in some way; suspense, plot twists, etc. However, if you build a plot through the premise of 'what will happen in the end?' or 'what is the end goal of this story?' or 'what will happen to the protagonist in the end?' and make it the key factor of your story, once the reader figures this out, you lose his/her interest.

Well then, one would say, just don't tell the audience about the end, then. Make it a complete surprise. And yeah, that can work, but stories these days (in my opinion) require hints and clues to give it depth, and story consumers have become really smart because of the huge amount of stories that can be readily consumed. If the ending is too unexpected, the pay off will not be rewarding and you risk leaving your audience displeased with the ending.

That's not to say this cannot happen with the alternative (focusing on the 'how' as opposed to the 'what'); just take the Bleach manga for an example. We know that Ichigo will win every fight, but we just don't know how, and this is especially true as he faces the final boss: the Quincy King, Yhwach. However, because the mangaka was pressed for time by his editors, the fight was cut short by a deus-ex-machina, never-before-mentioned tool that miraculously granted Ichigo the victory. The readers of Bleach, including myself, were REALLY dissatisfied with this ending, but this is a prime example of an ending that wasn't built up and was therefore was dissatisfied.

When you focus on the 'how' instead of the 'what' in regards to a story's plot, there's more flexibility. There are more answers for 'how' than 'what', and the answers for the 'how' question have to be more specific to be correct than answers for the 'what' question. For example, you could group the end goal, or the 'what', of Naruto and One Piece as 'become massively influencial in the world' or 'become extremely powerful and respected'. However, when you get into the 'how' question, the answer starts requiring more fine detail.

Why is this?

Why I think this is the case is because this question is more vague than the 'what' question. For example, say you're trying to guess the 'how' question for My Hero Academia, which as of the writing of this post is unfinished (short description of its world: it's a world similar to our's except powers, known as 'Quirks', has been a regular occurrence for around 3-4 generations, I think?), you can say "Well, Deku inherits the 'Symbol of Peace' title from All Might and that's how he becomes the #1 hero". However, some people might be unsatisfied with this answer: how does he inherit this title? Do villains become really big again and Deku is the one who takes out major villain organizations, as All Might did? Does one incident catapult his popularity to the top and he just works hard for the #1 spot? What about his own personal development as a character? How does he become that strong?

And so on and so on.

Another important thing is this: the 'what' question is essentially answered immediately, almost always within the first few scenes of the story's introduction.

When I say 'essentially answered immediately', I mean to say that the goal of the protagonist is stated clearly and the reader is left to infer that this goal is to be reached by the end of the story. In Naruto's case, in the first episode, he states very early on in the series that he will become Hokage and become respected. In One Piece's case, Luffy declares (to a rather unimportant character) that his goal is to become King of the Pirates. I'll even use my own story, The Garden of Hesperides, as an example: the protagonist, Kevin, to his abhor, discovers that SNSD is kidnapped. Although this time, the end goal isn't blatantly stated, I like to think it falls within a reasonable range of being fairly obvious to the audience that the 'what' question is answered by 'Kevin rescues all of SNSD from the criminal organization, The Garden of Hesperides'.

In my opinion, good stories are prefaced with an introduction to the world in which the story takes place, an answer as to the 'what will happen in the end' question, and an expectation of what kind of story that will be created.

Keep in mind, this isn't to say that you absolutely cannot use the 'what' question as a key factor to your story's plot, but I just highly recommend against it. In the only cases I can think of that the 'what' question is important, its importance is paralleled by the importance of the 'how' question.

In the end, what's important about a plot is the ability to craft an ending that your audience will happily and readily accept.

If this seems too vague for you, then separate yourself as the creator of the story and remove all the information you have of the intricacies of the story's plot to ask yourself this: if I were the audience of this story, would I be satisfied by this ending?