Forgive me if this is not a good topic for this area, but as this relates (and I am mostly thinking from a fic point of view) to this area, I thought it would probably be safe to post here. My question is, what do you, the reader (and/or fellow writer) look for when seeking out a fic/story to read? Any sort of particular element with the story, characters, etc...? Continuing onwards, what sort of thing do you the reader (and/or fellow writer) wish to see within a fic/story that may, or may not be often explored (and in a writers case, a question of whether they feel they could properly explore it or not), or briefly touched upon but either not resolved or gone into the direction one thought it might have gone. In short, to quote the mysterious Mr. Morden, "What do you want?"
1) Something unique. Something I haven't read before. 2) No "shipping" 3) Something that has a philosophical point. Not just uber-battles, unless there's a point to that too.
I look for good, solid characters who are portrayed consistently by their writer. The era, the type of ship, even the challenges or antagonists opposing the characters are as important as whether the characters themselves are vital and interesting. If you've got good characters, everything else is window-dressing.
I need to be able to feel for the characters--at least some of them need to be sympathetic, especially your main character unless someone is ready to dish out the ass-kicking he/she deserves. Darkness just for the sake of darkness I don't care for...it has to have a purpose. The characters need to feel like real people. I also need for the plots, missions, and settings to be something I care about. DS9-related stuff is my favorite--VOY stuff I connect with the least, and I tend to ignore it.
I primarily look for compelling characterization, consistency, and complexity of story line. If it's predictable or cliched, I won't read past the first post or two. The same goes for if the characters feel like flat, cardboard cutouts instead of real people. I really like when people take a conceit that has been done before but manage to bring something fresh and new to the concept. I also gravitate toward DS9 or TOS fanfic, not as wild about TNG or VOY, but if a story really grabs me, the source material doesn't matter so much. An Alternate Universe story has to really be exceptional to hold my attention, and the world has to feel real and fleshed out. Nobody likes to hear this, but also grammar is a big deal. I'm forgiving of a few typos here and there. We all make them. However, if I'm scratching my head trying to figure out who is talking, what a sentence even means, or there are serious spelling and punctuation issues scattered throughout, I will give up on a story very quickly. Grammar issues throw me right out of the narrative and keep me there. Yeah, I'm fairly picky. The fact is that I have limited time for leisure, and there are literally thousands of stories out there. I look for the ones that give me the most bang for my buck as far as time spent goes. As far as what I like to write best, I like to take either minor characters or ones that people typically perceive as villains and flesh them out or show them in a new light. I like the challenge of making someone the reader has a preconceived notion about disliking and showing them something admirable without glossing over the flaws, even if they don't like to admit it. Fun stuff.
Good characterization, like everyone else said, is key. I need to care about the people, and they need to feel real to me. I also need to believe they would do what they are doing in the story, whether they are canon characters or your own creations. As PSGarak said, consistency is important. Grammar is also far more important to me than it is to most people because I've been editing and proofreading at my job for ten years. So I tend to notice every little mistake (I notice this in published novels, as well -- inconsistencies in the spelling of a character's name, typos, that kind of thing). It sucks the enjoyment right out of a story for me because I go into "editor mode." I can't follow a story if there's too much of that. I'll sometimes suffer through a short piece that isn't up to quality standards if it's otherwise exceptional, but a chapter book/fic? Sorry, can't do it. It's nothing personal. I don't like battle porn, and I don't like actual porn. Violence and sex can serve the story, but it shouldn't be the other way around. Unlike many around here, I do like a good romance. Trek never handled romance well, and it's been fun to see that aspect explored in some of the better fic both here and at Ad Astra. I get weary of a story where that's the only thing going on, but I get a little bored by stories that don't have any at all. When the characters care about each other, it helps me care about them more. Basically, I look for something I can lose myself in for a few minutes at a time. If it feels like a little break from reality, it's a good story. If I find myself thinking about it a couple of hours later, it's a great story! (... and there are some great stories around here!)
I agree with some of the above. Characters worth knowing, grammar that is clean, and intriguing ideas. One thing I'll add-reasonably sized postings. There are a couple of great authors around here I ignore not because I dislike their stuff but, like PSGarak, I only have so much time to read. Usually it's my lunch hour. Anything over 4000 words is too much to get through, as I'm usually tracking multiple stories at any given time. For those authors that think I don't like to read their stories, or that I start commenting on in the beginning and then drop off, it's about volume, not preference.
I love interesting characters as much as the next guy but I'm looking for an engaging plot as well. You can have the most engaging characters but if your story doesn't go anywhere, I usually get bored. I'm also big on pace. I like stories that have a nice flow and smart dialogue. Stories jam-packed with prose, or stories in which the author uses ten paragraphs just to figure out what the protagonist is going to have for breakfast are usually not for me. I don't generally read stories about canon characters or based directly on one of the shows. There are plenty of novels for that. And chances are good that the author won't quite do the characters justice in my opinion. But I love original stuff, new characters, new ships, new situations. It's such a massive universe, there are so many interesting stories to tell. I'm not a perfectionist and I tend to be forgiving about weak spelling and grammar even though I do agree that it takes you out of a good story. Lately I've found myself with less and less time to read fan-fic and I tend to stick to stuff from authors who have shown interest in my own work or in a few cases, only read stories which are so engaging that I can't help myself.
All the obvious things really, something interesting that doesn't take too long to get started. Dialog that sounds 'real' is important and something that I strive to achieve in my own forays into writing! I'm also experimenting with giving my characters lives outside of Starfleet - something that characters in Starfleet seem to lack generally. By this I mean the vast majority are single people who appear to sacrifice relationships in favour of Starfleet service - the characters of the Original Series, Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager and Enterprise are all single with a few exceptions - this doesn't seem particularly realistic to me so seeing people with family back home appeals to me.
Stardate and/or contemporary calendar date in order to instantly latch onto the time period & follow the flow of the author's original intent. Recaps (in the event the story is a follow-up to one of TNG's famous "loose ends".) Shipper connections (Straight/Gay/Lesbian/Transgendered) as it seems odd to me that you interact with people/families on your deck in the next cabin over from you every single day. I'm from a redneck town of 32,000 people. Stuff happens. It seems odd to me that in canon Trek Lit, you don't see more openly sexual relationships. You depend on other crew-persons on your (ship, colony, starbase, shipyard) for your very survival in space but aren't the slightest bit tempted to arrange a booty-call with ~any~ of them. Especially considering how long TOS-era (three year) missions were & then, TNG's open-ended Voyager-style missions. I find booty-calls in Trek story arcs longer than a vignette, intrinsically important to "The Human Experience". I think, regardless of the century, a woman or a guy are going to get their noses out of line from time to time if their crush much prefers holosuite characters to 'Them'. A good story that has a sense of feasible/plausible action. Starfleet ships that actually take damage, core breach & people actually die. Fantastic description. Someone that can paint the sight and smell of a colony science-station basement as you're creeping on the balls of your feet and about to drop something unpleasant in your shorts if the thing you're tracking finds out which side you're most vulnerable on. Someone that knows how to describe a modified TMP or TNG-era frankenstein fleet ship that's been sent out as "bait" for something that's recently woken-up. More Geordi/Wesley "mentor/protege" relationships but let's not go to Mary Sue extremes with it. A story that "wraps-around". A story that begins with a slam-bang battle scene at the end of the story. The narrator then (via a Duty / Personal Log Entry,) segues into a flashback, describing the events leading up to the battle & conclusion. I agree with Lazarus about personal relationships. I'd like to see more "uncomfortable moments" at Thanksgiving on Shore / Compassionate Leave.
I should add something else I really like in stories. I want to be able to see and feel the world of your story not just as a movie, but experience it through the characters--to understand how they perceive it, how they feel. I want to be immersed in their world, not just watch it as if from afar.
Thanks for the answers, everyone it's an interesting read, and really makes me think about approaches and how I did stuff in the past. Another part of the question, is there a preference to the era, or even the genere? Trek? Non trek? if it's trek, the era part comes in.
Seeing that this is a Trek board, most readers here, me included, are probably looking for that in the first instance. My favorite Trek era for fanfic is pobably TNG, DS9 and the time around the Dominion War. Mainly because that's the time frame most UT writers work in. But because we don't get much orignial fiction set in the TOS or original movie era, I usually get quite excited when somebody takes a stab at that as well. I'm not a big fan of the far Trek future, i.e. anything way past Voyager and Nemesis. Having said that, there are a couple of writers out there who are making pretty decent points in making me reconsider.
I grew up in a military family, on base, I've heard real stories of walking patrols, fire fights, tank engagements and from older veterans naval battles, it's rare a story truly captures the feel of combat. A suggestion if I could, go down to the VFW and interview a few old guys before you write up that section of your stories. These guys love to talk. I'm not a big adherent to canon, change things if it's important to your story. You don't have to state that it in an alternate universe, every story in my mind is a fresh start. Remind me this is the future, the first season of TOS made it feel like they were out there in the darkness of space and drop the polical correctness, your characters culture HAS to be different than ours. One of the things that made TOS feel like watching science fiction was the overall view towards women, from the year 2009 the 1960's attitudes seems ... different. Barracks romances, the crew has lives off the bridge. Not all affairs are sexual. I understand andorians have four genders. How does that work socially. If you're going to have tech in you stories, think it through or leave it out. In Trek stories you sometimes get the impression there are only ten or twenty people on the whole ship. Trek should have occasionally moments of comedy.
Two kinds of male, two kinds of female. I don't know any more than that, but there's a member here called Therin of Andor who can probably explain it.
Things that I like to read in a Trek story: 1) Interesting characters that aren't limited to one function. What I mean to say is, even the most dedicated captain in the fleet doesn't sit on the bridge all day, giving orders. The same goes for the other characters. 2) I prefer to read about original characters. There's nothing wrong with the canon ones, but there are already plenty of novels out there dealing with their adventures. So try to make something new. 3) While the characters can be good in what they're doing, try to make it somewhat realistic. I'm well aware that canon Trek isn't always realistic, but 25 year old starship captains, or even worse admirals, is stretching it to say the very least. 4) A sort of philosophical - ethical question in the plot. But don't just add one when it has absolutely nothing to do with the plot. Oh, due try to stay away from religion; there are already too many stories about it, and most of them say "religion is bad". After having read a few dozen of those, it became somewhat boring. 5) Technology. It's an important part of the Trek-verse. Just don't go into technical specifics for no apparent reason. Especially not if it's "existing" technology. If it's something new, tell us something about it, but make sure it doesn't distract us from the actual story. 6) Technology serves the plot, not the other way around. 7) Try to stick to the Trek-rules about stardates, NCC numbers, and warp speeds. I don't want you to start making calculations about warp speed, but make speed-time-distance somewhat plausible. 8) Don't be afraid to explore new places. It's a big place so ships don't always have to visit the same places over and over again. 9) Stay away from the Borg as much as possible; they've suffered enough at the hands of Voyager to be considered a real threat. 10) Don't go too much into the future and past. This being, 10-15 years before TOS begins (I don't like Enterprise), and about the first half of the 25th century (it can be interesting to see how current situations have evolved in lets say 50 years). 11) No Dominion War, there are already enough stories about it; Especially when you consider it's only a 3 year period in almost 100 years of Trek-history (TOS-VOY). 12) While there is nothing wrong with things becoming "darker" on occasion, the Trek-verse has become notably darker with lots and lots of angst in between these last few years without a reason (We can't keep blaming the Borg and Dominion for everything). 13) If the story is in the "future", say 30 years after Nemesis, make sure it's the future. i.e. new ships, technology, political changes, ... In other words, don't du what ST Online does; giving us the 25th century with no new ship to play with. (Even worse, we get the old Constitution refit back.) 14) Don't be afraid to go into the controversial topics. 15) Try to keep spelling and grammar mistakes as low as possible. I might be more forging than others (English is my third language, so I can't expect it to be error-free if I can't do it myself), but it doesn't mean there can be 50 mistakes a paragraph. If something isn't clear, don't be afraid to ask, I don't bite.