I read lots of stories, (they seem to be published literally by the tens of thousands) and after I have finished them I sit and wonder why in Heaven's name they were published. And the only answer I can find is "technique, structure and literary polish." Too much insistence on these points has a tendency not only to handicap the writer, but to standardize style, and I read magazines the subject-matter of which might every word of it have been written by the same author, as far as I could tell.
Curiosity is another powerful element. Perhaps the most potent of all, in a certain sense. A mystery story intrigues all classes of people. Of course it must have the other qualities mentioned, too.
Harold Lamb: To be honest, I don't know. A child likes a story because it opens a door that the child can not open of itself. It pleases a child to have imaginary experiences, giving pleasure, the stimulus of danger, and the satisfaction of curiosity.
A grown-up is pretty much the same. Except that a child desires especially to have curiosity satisfied, and a grown-up likes to forget things.
Sinclair Lewis: It affords an "escape"—the reader or hearer imagines himself in the tale.
Eugene P. Lyle, Jr.: Imagining yourself in the same fix.
Homer I. McEldowney: The impulse, weak or dominant, that is in all mankind—to be what he is not, to have what he has not, and to see that which he has not seen. That, I think, is the elemental hold of fiction on the human mind.
Ray McGillivray: The hypnotizing grasp it exerts upon imagination—persuading, compelling the reader to project himself, his likes and dislikes, his sympathies and his ambitions into the story he peruses.
Helen Topping Miller: The withdrawing of the reader from his own world, transporting him into an imaginary place where he is able to picture things as he wishes them rather than as they are. Every reader has more or less yearning for the dramatic. In reading fiction he sees himself the hero, fights the conflicts and achieves the reward which the author supplies.
Thomas Samson Miller: Sentiment, curiosity, heroism.