Writing What makes a story good?

[Alaska]

What traits make a story shine in your eyes?

 

[Anon2024]

On SH there has to be smut. If it's somewhere else then it just needs an interesting protagonist that is three dimensional.

 

[gaylolis]

i think it depends on what i'm currently looking forward to reading atm

if it complies with my standard and stayed consistent 'til the end, it's good.

if it even exceed my expectations on top of being a good story, it's great.

if it completely changes my perspective on top of that, it's a masterpiece.

 

[K5Rakitan]

fraternal polyandry

 

[Gryphon]

The fact that I put smut in my tags, and despite it mainly being about frailty of humanity and how we are pretty much a shitshow of a species, the smut tag can still be there thanks to all the SEX.

 

[BearlyAlive]

Peeps, they asked "what makes a good story" and not "How do I get the most clicks with the least effort"...

Strong characters engaged in the plot. And no, I really mean plot and not PLOT.
The plot can be as boring or as weird as it can be as long as the characters are engaged in it.

 

[JenLeifire]

Yeah I know smut is trending on SH, but imo a story should be engaging and interesting to be good and shouldn't only depend on one element.

 

[TheEldritchGod]

What traits make a story shine in your eyes?

A great Villain.

 

[RavenRunes]

3d characters with flaws, great dialogue and relationships and an MC who isn't a wet rag. Couldn't care less about twisty plots. Or smut, although that's always a bonus.
I'd like to see more stories where you're surprised who the villain actually is. In a lot of fantasy they seem to go about with it on a Tshirt. If you have to tell everyone you're intelligent, then you're probably not. Same with villains.

 

[Thmeyoneha]

Mad or crazy characters, less talk and more facial or situation expressions that show they're always in the verge of breaking point but wisely spend that energy by murdering other characters. Depends on the genre though.

 

[Alaska]

3d characters with flaws, great dialogue and relationships and an MC who isn't a wet rag. Couldn't care less about twisty plots. Or smut, although that's always a bonus.
I'd like to see more stories where you're surprised who the villain actually is. In a lot of fantasy they seem to go about with it on a Tshirt. If you have to tell everyone you're intelligent, then you're probably not. Same with villains.

Wet rag?

 

[RavenRunes]

someone who's a bit lame and has no agency

 

[SakeVision]

on scribblehub?

if it has basic grammar and formating and dialogs make no more than 1/4 of the chapter content

 

[Deleted member 57675]

Main characters did not loose braincells and contradict their previous development.
Main characters even having character development at all.
Plot reasonable and believable - no power of friendship after a million backstabs.
Grammar -typos and some stuff okay. Until some things get too awkward or hard to read.

 

[ShrimpShady]

If I like it, it's good

 

[AliceShiki]

Characters that can get me invested into the story is the main point to me.

A good plot is a nice bonus, and character development is always welcome too, but like... Give me characters that I care about and you already did 90% of the job to keep me reading your story.

Then we can go into more technical details related to good dialogue structure, avoiding exposition dumps, well-rounded narrative that is wrapped up in a reasonable about of time and other stuff like that.