What do YOU want to see?

I often wonder just what it is that people want to see in Han and Leia fanfic. What kinds of story summaries or ideas make you want to open it? Is it who writes it? Is it the scenario? I know I have a terrible time writing summaries for my stories. On one hand, I don't want to just flat out tell people exactly what's going to happen. On the other hand, sometimes you can be so vague that nobody knows what the heck it is about and maybe doesn't care to click on it to find out. I actually had someone recently review a story of mine and said that she had come across the story many times but was never interested in reading it before, but was advised to by some friends and wound up liking it. So I went ahead and asked her why it was that she didn't have interest in reading it. Thankfully, she went ahead and told me (it's ok, I can take it, and maybe it will help!) and she just said that the scenario didn't grab her and maybe I should mention a certain aspect of the plot that would've made her a bit more interested. I appreciate that kind of feedback, because what if she wasn't the only one who felt that way? What if there are other people who would be swayed to click on a story based on a different summary?

Anyway, I'm always interested to know what it is that draws someone to read a story. I'd say that first of all, the easiest way to choose is if you see a new story from a writer whose stories you've enjoyed before. Let's face it: a new person pops up out of nowhere they could've written almost anything. I've clicked on some pretty horrendous first-time attempts, to the point of being nearly incoherent. Then again, sometimes someone who has never written anything before can totally surprise you (Push and Digs certainly fall into this category!) So it's hard to automatically discount someone just because you've never seen anything from them before. It does make you wonder where they've been hiding, though! But again, if someone you've enjoyed stories from before shows up with something new, it's pretty much a no-brainer to click and start reading.

I'll give almost any new story a quick skim-through to see if anything grabs me. But a unique summary will also get me interested. I mean, this fandom has been around longer than I've been alive, so a lot of stories have been written. It's tough to come up with something new and different. I think that is one of the troubles I have when trying to come up with something to write, it's all been done before. Or much of it has, anyway. Does anybody really care to read about my version of their trip to Bespin? Probably not, especially given the fact that I wouldn't put any sex in it ;) I'm even starting to feel underwhelmed with my own current story at the moment because while some of the action that happened in the middle was somewhat new, now it's just about having the babies, which I know has been done before and there just doesn't seem to be a good reason that anyone should want to read my version of that.

So what DO you want to see? Tell us! Maybe it will give us some ideas we hadn't thought of. Even if you don't know what you want until you see it, at least tell us that. We spend a lot of time wondering why more people aren't reading or at least commenting and it's nice to have a way to maybe solve that little mystery. We won't know if you never tell us.