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

[slashxmistress.livejournal.com]

I could go on
Well please do! - I really am interested in what people think about this.

As to typos- that drives me crazy too - but as I told patch - I tend to think of that as bad editing. - SO maybe people should be asking for well edited fics :D

[jamie-dear.livejournal.com]

uh, okay! lots of things bug me about fics. like, sex scenes are sort of a do or die, they're either good or bad, there's no in between.I hate it when people use the 'scientific' terms of the body. Well-written fics to me have a good flow to them, it doesn't branch off into some completely irrelevant little detour.
They have interesting plots that haven't been used before (though, that is very difficult in the Patd fandom nowadays) and actually make me want to read it.
And I know this is 'judging a book by it's cover', but it always helps to have a good summary. One line from the story doesn't really get me hooked, I want to know what I'm about to read before I click on a link and slow down my computer. I've seen people use whole paragraphs, and that works a bit better, but it has to be one that actually describes a little bit.
And that's all I can think of right now. :]

[slashxmistress.livejournal.com]

Oh- Sex scenes! There really is no in between- it's bad when you find yourself scrolling through the sex scenes to get to the "good" parts LOL

I totally agree about the summary!! It doesn't necessarily have to be long- I have gotten hooked into fic by one single sentence - many times.
(one good example of that: Brendon keeps accidentally having foursomes. !!)

But I really hate when an author says " I hate summaries- just read it" -I skip right by those without looking back.