What makes a good story?

Here is my take on what makes a good story.

A super idea, great writing, clever construction, and relevance make a story good.

Starting with the first one, we writers have a passion about something.  We queue on writing prompts, a news flash, the efforts of a snail dashing cross the yard that we came across or it could be a message of spiritual or political import that we want to put out metaphorically or overtly.  Could be we just want to play the Devil's advocate and stir things up.  Whatever the case we have to write it well.

That takes us to great writing.  That entails a vocabulary appropriate to the intended reader.  It means putting the modifying phrases close to the object.  It means a comma in the right spot and less Yoda think, which is what I suffer from the most.  This tell you, I do.  There are volumes written on correctly putting out ideas and feelings on paper.  I have a near half-dozen in my library.  Although, you might not know it by my first draft.  These first two are pretty straight forward.  We all have great ideas and grammar can be edited and fixed.  What about the construction of the good story?

When talking about how to construct the story it gets a little dicey.  Do the plot and subplots interweave cleverly?  Do story elements introduced here and there interlock in a meaningful way?  The intended readers probably haven't read Steven King's book on writing or Sol Stein's "How to Grow a Novel".  Yet, they will know what they like.  The readers know from plenty of reading what works for them and what doesn't.  There is a given about readers, the more they read the better they get at reading.  Once tasted a superbly written book they won't give much time to a lessor wrote one.  Part of that maturity in the reader brings into play the final item I bring up and that is relevance.

First off, not everything we write is going to work for everyone.  That is what makes relevance important.  Is what is being read meaningful to the reader?  Some readers are cross genre readers; even though they probably have a favorite genre that is read most.  It could be for relaxing or for education.  One of the elements, in my mind, to the relevance of story is the objects written into the story that relates.  For instance, if I were writing a story about a trucker and wanted a reader that is a trucker to enjoy it I would have to get into the story stuff that a trucker can identify with, such as an electronic logging system gone awry or the mysterious discovery of a 17th gear in a sixteen gear compound axle drive.  The trucker/reader might wonder, what is that going to do?  A good story has to have relevance to the reader.  That is why we hear the advice given to new writers; write what you know.  When we write what we know it gives credence to our prose.  Otherwise, research and write what you've learned.

To wrap up, take that super idea, write it well with clever construction and make it meaningful.  The audience will grow.