i tend to have high standards regarding story mechanics - grammar, spelling, story flow and sentence construction. and good paragraph breaks - you'd be surprised at how many people have no idea when to start a new paragraph, lol.
seriously, that's 90% of the stories right there. for example, i'd never rec Susan Foster's GDP stories in The Sentinel, because even though the idea is *great*, the story mechanics *suck completely*. Susan's writing british english, so she's not english as a second language, which i'll make some allowances for.
another big whack of stories go out the window for lack of realism. there's one story on Lady Angel's library that keep trying to read because i like 'long, plotty, and how the ATF team got together' - it should hit all my kinks, right? except that the author ruins it every time she implies that a shot from 30 yds away with a sniper rifle is 1) reasonable and 2) an amazing thing. drives me absolutely batty. i don't consider myself a gun nut, but it doesn't take *that* long to pull out the basic research!
that and lack of IC-ness. a certain amount, ok, if you can make me believe it. but an awful lot of authors make the characters far more emotionally fragile than they should be. i recently read a story that had all 7 of the guys weeping all over each other for almost a week. i'll totally grant that the situation was stressful, but i don't even know *women* who'd act that way in response, and western men, most with military experience just... *wouldn't*. it'd have to be much, much worse (which is a weird thing to say, because the situation was pretty bad, but still...).
once you knock out all those you're not left with more than 10% of the stories in any fandom, really. and mag7 is fortunate to have some great writers, you're right about that. so the ones that *i* rec are the ones that really stand out in my mind. the ones i go back to read and love 'em just as much as the first time. the ones that take my breath away and especially, make me think about the guys and how they interact with each other and the world. that comes down to a much smaller amount.
basically, my rec standards boil down to - 'is this something i'd buy in a bookstore?' i personally tend to be biased against the OW AU, but that's just me. accounting for that, there really aren't that many people in any fandom who can produce fic that would be 'publishable'. and even among publishable fic, there's a lot fewer stories that leave you both completely satisfied and wanting more. in that manner, a good story is like a good lover, every experience with it is memorable.
-bs, thinking this should become a new meta post...
Re: Decided to answer in a literal manner :-p
seriously, that's 90% of the stories right there. for example, i'd never rec Susan Foster's GDP stories in The Sentinel, because even though the idea is *great*, the story mechanics *suck completely*. Susan's writing british english, so she's not english as a second language, which i'll make some allowances for.
another big whack of stories go out the window for lack of realism. there's one story on Lady Angel's library that keep trying to read because i like 'long, plotty, and how the ATF team got together' - it should hit all my kinks, right? except that the author ruins it every time she implies that a shot from 30 yds away with a sniper rifle is 1) reasonable and 2) an amazing thing. drives me absolutely batty. i don't consider myself a gun nut, but it doesn't take *that* long to pull out the basic research!
that and lack of IC-ness. a certain amount, ok, if you can make me believe it. but an awful lot of authors make the characters far more emotionally fragile than they should be. i recently read a story that had all 7 of the guys weeping all over each other for almost a week. i'll totally grant that the situation was stressful, but i don't even know *women* who'd act that way in response, and western men, most with military experience just... *wouldn't*. it'd have to be much, much worse (which is a weird thing to say, because the situation was pretty bad, but still...).
once you knock out all those you're not left with more than 10% of the stories in any fandom, really. and mag7 is fortunate to have some great writers, you're right about that. so the ones that *i* rec are the ones that really stand out in my mind. the ones i go back to read and love 'em just as much as the first time. the ones that take my breath away and especially, make me think about the guys and how they interact with each other and the world. that comes down to a much smaller amount.
basically, my rec standards boil down to - 'is this something i'd buy in a bookstore?' i personally tend to be biased against the OW AU, but that's just me. accounting for that, there really aren't that many people in any fandom who can produce fic that would be 'publishable'. and even among publishable fic, there's a lot fewer stories that leave you both completely satisfied and wanting more. in that manner, a good story is like a good lover, every experience with it is memorable.
-bs, thinking this should become a new meta post...