The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly - What makes a fic "good"?

[cruiscin_lan]

I've been doing a fair bit of meta-ing with tiptoe39 and some capslock crack at speccygeekgrrl's lj, but mostly the secret in question has made me genuinely curious - what makes a fic stand out as good? A lot of people are throwing around random comments in the forum (i.e. "97% of fic is crap") which makes me wonder what standards by which people judge what they read.

Here's a few that factor into my own personal enjoyment:

1. Readability (format, grammar, spelling) - No matter how compelling the fic might otherwise be, if it makes my head go all hurty, I'm going to close the window. It's one thing to have a few typos. It's another to have light text on a white background, or to italicize every other word, or to completely forget what a shift key is for.
   
2. Creativity - It's easy to get to a "been there, done that" point with fanfiction. There's countless fics out there that resurrect dead characters, or invent happy endings for ships - but I like to see something that stands out because it's different.
   
3. Ship/Pairing - So I'm not so much of a shipper, but there are a few that I choose over others. I don't like Tracy, for example, so I tend to skip fics she's in. Yeah, I'm probably going to miss a few gems that way, but it doesn't make a difference if something is technically brilliant but about characters I don't particularly like.
   
4. Characterization - Speaking of characters, I like them as they are. That's why I like them. Please to not be changing that.
   
5. Style - Yeah, so this one's really vague. It's like porn - you'll know it when you see it.
   
6. Author - I know who writes what I like to read, so I'm more likely to read something by an author whose work I'm familiar with.
   
7. Recs - Again, I know what I like. My friends often share these likes. If they liked something, I'll probably like it too. That's the transitive property, I think.

A few other things that I thought of but that aren't that relevant to me are these: genre; rating; instant gratification (i.e. seeing your prompt fulfilled); being nominated or awarded recognition; quality of summary (more often I'm turned off by it than drawn in, but I'm glad it's there); and netiquette in posting (it's not cool to spam flists by cross-posting to every fic comm out there).

So what are your thoughts? What are your standards? Sharing time!

Comments

[aegoceros.livejournal.com]

Word choice is a big one. For whatever reason, I have a tendency to reword lines in my head that don't sit well with me, and the more of that I have to do in order to enjoy the work, the more prone I am to click the back button before finishing. The same goes with books. I just do it without thinking.

And then characterization is a either a big draw or a total repellent. Like you said, I want to read about the characters I know from the source material. Oddly enough, though, I'm way more tolerant of so-so characterization than I am wonky writing style. In the vein of characterization, I REALLY like when people make things awkward with potentially awkward characters. Like, taking into consideration the fact that Elle is a diagnosed sociopath and Sylar still has that bespectacled watchmaker floating around somewhere inside of him.

Oh! Premise. I will probably not read something about Sylar going on a sunny beach picnic with Noah and crying in his arms about how the ocean makes him feel. Although really, if anyone can write that and make me believe it, you get major respect points from me xD

[cruiscin-lan.livejournal.com]

Re: word choice and characterization and premise - If Sylar is calling anyone "princess" or "sweetheart" in a sincere way, I want the hell out of that fic.

Wait, do you mean Noah Bennet in that example, or Noah Gray? Because if it's Noah-his-son it might be doable...

[aegoceros.livejournal.com]

Noah Bennet. My brain didn't even consider that there may be fic out there involving his son. Now I'm all curious to see if there's some out there that's good :d