If writers get bitten by the writing bug then it’s my theory readers can get bitten by the story bug. Um, why not the reading bug, you ask? Well, that’s a good question and I suppose to some extent they do. It’s just that when I think reading bug, I simply think about our obsession with constantly reading and to me the story bug is about so much more than the need to read. The story bug is about the need to find certain types of stories to read, so it’s a step above the reading bug. Not necessarily write them, which is why the writing bug would be the next level of contagion. And the publishing bug, the next, and so on and so on.
See where I’m going with this?
We’re talking about intensities of obsessions here, you know, and somewhere in there falls the collecting bug but I’ve never quite figured out where it actually fits. Maybe it’s on a completely different scale of its own? 
Anyway, back to the story bug. I became fascinated with this one when I discovered writing fan fiction. Not because I suddenly decided I wanted to become a published writer. Good god, no. For one thing, I do not have the discipline needed to do that for a living. Or even a half-way full-time hobby. I dibble and dabble when the mood strikes me.
And that’s just it, sometimes the mood strikes in the form of a story idea that I have to write down even if it never goes anywhere and sometimes it hits in the form of a craving for a story I’d like to read. It gnaws at me. It annoys me. I know it has to be out there. Or at least it should be out there. I want it to be out there. I can only hope it’s out there.
Maybe?
Of course, if I were a writer, that craving might eventually translate into an actual book someday but, since I’m not, it translates into the eternal search for the book that fits the craving. The problem is whether that book really exists.
Better question, does it matter? Most likely, it only exists in bits and pieces, which is why I have a house full of paperbacks that I can’t bring myself to get rid of. Don’t we all. You see, as crazy as it sounds, while individually they might not completely satisfy the itch, they do meet part of the need. Some part of them might even fit part of the puzzle of what we’re looking for at any given time.
Sometimes they’re simply perfection in a moment in time, nothing more, nothing less.
And that’s the story bug in action.
My current romance story bug is shifters. Can’t get enough of them but I’m not completely satisfied with the ones I’m finding. I want something . . . else from them but I’m not sure what. Each time I think I’ve found it, it slips away into the mists. See what I mean? I almost thought I’d found it when I ran across the Talon anthology from Sanhaim which featured a group of short stories about bird shifters. It was so refreshing to not be reading about cat and dog societies, you know. ;p
Anyway, my point, is that as long as I’m bitten by the bug I’ll be searching and exploring. So, what’s your personal story bug? What type stories do you endlessly search for?
No related posts.
I love a good series. I read (but don’t write) sci-fi/fantasy. I search for stories in the vein of McCaffrey’s Pern, Herbert’s Dune, Asimov’s Foundation, Heinlein’s Long family chronicles. IOW, I love to explore worlds with broad socio-political themes.
I am just voracious, like a locust. I have to have 10 books at least TBR or I feel I’ve got nothing to read. I never throw away a book and just read and read. It’s what I’m doing when I’m not writing working eating or watching TV.
I, like Alessia, love a good series,(GRRM) but am sad enough to want to read to the end, even if it gets worse (Dune, Harry Potter) I’m a completist. If I have a few of an author that I like, then I HAVE to have them ALL
I know EXACTLY what you mean, B.B. It’s a constant craving that’s never going to BE satisfied, I believe.
For me at least. Now that you’ve explained it I get fanfic. Like you, I have no desire to be a writer. In my case I definitely don’t have the skills, either. I DO know what I want to read but with the romance industry and many other readers being so deeply traditional and rule bound, I know I’m not likely to get it. Stories from some of the smaller ebook publishers have come closer than anything else, though.
I’m constantly looking for series in the vein of the Weather Warden books by Rachel Caine, or the Hollows by Kim Harrison. A new rich world with a tough, but likeable heroine. Patricia Briggs is coming so close to that…I liked Moon Called, but loved Blood Bound…so I’m getting hooked on Mercy. I’m also hoping Vicki Pettersson’s next book will keep my avid interest for dark action-packed urban fantasies going. I’d love to hook onto another good quality series.
I’m not sure how to describe exactly what I’m looking for in a book either, and I’m a writer. LOL But I know it when I read it and when I write it. My Valorian Chronicles is exactly the type of romance I love. Dark, action-packed with strong interesting characters.
I love the Mary Stewart-type gothics and that’s why I was so excited to find Jennifer St. Giles. You don’t see those types of books too often. I also love time travels which are a lot rarer than they were when I started reading romance. There are time periods I’d like to read more about, like 1915-1940, which are very hard to find! Since I am a writer I will dabble-write in my favorite reading areas, but for the most part I write other things. Maybe because the above listed favorites are as hard to sell as they are to find!
I’m so glad I’m not crazy for thinking this way.
Sometimes I think it’s like that philosophy about the journey being more important than the destination. It’s the search for the perfect story that’s more important to me than actually finding it. If I actually found it, what would I have to look for? 
Oops, posted before I completed. Which is also why I’m pretty sure I couldn’t ever be a fiction writer. The idea of actually “finishing” a story would drive me nuts. And I’m not sure it’s a matter of discipline, either. My brain doesn’t seem to be wired that way for some strange reason.
Bev (BB)
I hate to be the one to break it to you, but you are showing all the signs of a “tortured fiction writer” and the only cure to the constant craving you’re having is to write these stories yourself…
Before I started writing fiction again I used to have these really intense and vivid dreams, almost never ending dreams of the same people and places. Sometimes they would turn into nightmares. I mentioned it to a writer friend of mine and they diagnosed me as a “tortured fiction writer.” I think you might be one too. Come on over to the other side. The water is fine. 
Gwyneth
Interesting.
Think I search for stories with the implicit rather than the explicit.
Though that does not mean I don’t enjoy the latter.
I think I dream exactly the kind of stories I want to read, but they never finish and I wake up unable to remember much except that they were exactly “right”.
Then I spend my life trying to find them written by someone else. Sadly, I never do.
I hate to be the one to break it to you, but you are showing all the signs of a “tortured fiction writer†and the only cure to the constant craving you’re having is to write these stories yourself…
Oh, but I do. Sometimes. When the urge strikes. Thing is, it doesn’t always strike that way. Sometimes it’s much more of an urge to look for the idea in an existing story. A craving actually.
Or should I say an obssession?
Not a bad one, though. It just is what it is. And I guess that was my real point writing in the post. I think sometimes we get so wrapped up in the goal of “getting published” that we don’t always value the simple mental exercise of creative writing or even plain old imagination as much as we should nowadays.