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As the title says - when you're browsing through 40k fanfiction, what do you look for in a story? What catches your interest, keeps you reading?

Conversely, what makes you hit the back-button in disinterest or disgust?

Hehe, whoops. I should've clarified more. I meant fanfiction, stuff people post on the internet, not published stuff. Though I suppose it pretty much amounts to the same thing, heh.

I mean, when reading a 40k story (let's ignore the fanfic part for now ) what do you prefer? Action, plot, character interaction & development, anything else, a bit of everything?

Do you prefer a story that is mostly focused on just one character, or one that's told from multiple characters' points of view?

A lot of description and scene-setting, or less description and more action/dialogue?

I'm mostly just curious to see how much peoples' ideals differ. And to see if there's anything I should focus more/less on with my own writing, hehehe.

Heh, it's a rule of the internet that there's always going to be dubious stuff about ANY fandom. I just try to ignore that side of things.

And I agree about the no point/showing off kind of stories. Although I did kind of enjoy Battle for the Abyss. ¬_¬ Admittedly, mostly because of Mhotep, but I digress.

How forgiving do you tend to be with differences or inconsistencies with established fluff in fan writing?

Vladsimpaler wrote:
I will be a minority here, however I get tired of reading stories of "glorious charges of Imperial Space Marines and they still win with almost no casualties".

Heh, I agree. But what about ones where the Space Marines pretty much lose the battle while still having very few actual deaths? Plot armour being plot armour and all that, heh.

And yeah, I do love me some black humour. Sometimes even the occasional interjection of regular humour, as long as it's in-character and fits with what's going on. If everything's all grimdark all the time, it gets rather... flat, I think. Y'need the contrast of highlights to make the dark times actually feel darker.

And totally agree with what I know you mean by the Farseers/Assassins line.

Unless, of course, the Assassin is just using it as a ploy to get close enough to assassinate said Farseer. That could be interesting, at least. Hm.