For me, it largely depends on my mood. Sometimes I want a story with new ideas and depth, other times I'm tired and my brain isn't working and I'd love to read something entirely clichéd, with a plot that has been done a few dozen times before, as long as it flows reasonably well and isn't littered with spelling mistakes.
But in general... hm. I read most anything that was at least somewhat readable when I first got into fic, but have become a lot more picky in the last year. So it's the usual - too many spelling and grammar mistakes (there are some I mind more than others; if the author uses "would of" and such, I'm going to stop reading). A plot that bores me. Randomly thrown in sex scenes, or a story that is otherwise well written but seems to consist of nothing but sex scenes and hasn't been labelled PWP. Characterisation issues: I can give quite a bit of leeway to the writer there, but if they're either quite unrecognisable or just not appealing to me (doormat!Hermione, nasty!Snape who keeps humiliating and hurting her on purpose chapter after chapter), then I stop reading.
Then there are a lot of small things, such as misspelling canon character names (happens even outside ff.net - I've seen far too many Pavartis on Ashwinder for example). Snape wearing knickers or Hermione washing her hair in the loo. Or anything to do with my very personal preferences, such as smoking Snape, a Snape who is a heavy drinker, a Snape who uses prostitutes, a Hermione who happily sleeps around during Hogwarts years... these are things that a good writer can probably make believable, but they just don't appeal to me.
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Date: 2008-12-17 07:41 am (UTC)For me, it largely depends on my mood. Sometimes I want a story with new ideas and depth, other times I'm tired and my brain isn't working and I'd love to read something entirely clichéd, with a plot that has been done a few dozen times before, as long as it flows reasonably well and isn't littered with spelling mistakes.
But in general... hm. I read most anything that was at least somewhat readable when I first got into fic, but have become a lot more picky in the last year. So it's the usual - too many spelling and grammar mistakes (there are some I mind more than others; if the author uses "would of" and such, I'm going to stop reading). A plot that bores me. Randomly thrown in sex scenes, or a story that is otherwise well written but seems to consist of nothing but sex scenes and hasn't been labelled PWP. Characterisation issues: I can give quite a bit of leeway to the writer there, but if they're either quite unrecognisable or just not appealing to me (doormat!Hermione, nasty!Snape who keeps humiliating and hurting her on purpose chapter after chapter), then I stop reading.
Then there are a lot of small things, such as misspelling canon character names (happens even outside ff.net - I've seen far too many Pavartis on Ashwinder for example). Snape wearing knickers or Hermione washing her hair in the loo. Or anything to do with my very personal preferences, such as smoking Snape, a Snape who is a heavy drinker, a Snape who uses prostitutes, a Hermione who happily sleeps around during Hogwarts years... these are things that a good writer can probably make believable, but they just don't appeal to me.