Thinky- what makes fic well written?

[slashxmistress]

How do you decide that a fic is "well-written"?

I see this all the time in seek comms and elsewhere- asking for "well-written" fics and well - that just seems so generic and unspecific to me. (and actually kind of pretentious too tbqh)

Is it 'well-written' because you like it? If you don't like it does that make it not well -written?

What quantifies something as well- written? Good grammar? no typos? Long, pretentious, character studies?

I judge a fic by if I enjoy it , if it makes me think , or feel (and yes horny is a feeling :P if it's hot that totally counts), but some of my very, very favorites are probably not that "well-written" in the English major kind of way. Does that matter? Not to me.

Comments

[redorchids.livejournal.com]

I can't read a lot of the 'epic' 400 chapter fics- especially when they are WIP's

Same here. I used to both read and write WIP's, but I don't anymore, because the story almost always ends up suffering from it. Especially the "epic" ones, and especially the ones where the author only thought as far as "hey, I'm going to get these characters into bed and get hot porn \o/" but, for some unfantomable reason, decided to write a long drama instead of a PWP. (This thankfully doesn't seem to happen nearly as much in Bandom as it does in HP. PWP is a totally legit genre here. So awesome. :-D)

Basically it takes loads of skill for a writer to stay focused over a longer story arc, and re-writes are usually crucial to it all sticking together in the end (which you can't do if you're posting it as you go along)

Loved the Skittles comment, btw. So true. :-)