The three ingredients for a really good story

Really good narrative, long or short, is made up of three essential factors:
1) World - that means, background and athmospere. The reader must feel the world described as REAL. There must be the feeling of the time and place. If you could be anyplace, anytime, without sufficiently definite background, you'll soon tire of the story, unless it's a purely psychological one.
2) A good plot. Something of interest must happen and develop in interesting, unexpected ways. And that must be shown, not told, nothing of that stream of consciousness stuff (you can have a bit of stream of consciousness, but it can't be the WHOLE novel). Plots must go somewhere, and you can't have loose end dangling in the void, like in "The crimson petal and the white". This is gross disrespect for the reader. Is the well known Ready-for-the-sequel syndrome,mostly. Even more annoying is the "Novel - Chopped-in Halves-Syndrome", in which a single, long novel, is published in two unequal parts, without any care for when and how the first part terminates, leaving the reader of the first half asking WTF??
3) Characters you can emphatize and care for. This is most important. Many hard science fiction novels, expecially today, fails in this respect.They're all theory, and action, and not a single character that isn't cardboard or indifferent. Characters give Life to a novel.
A novel is made also of interaction of characters and how they feel for each other, and their thoughts and goals.

All those three ingredients can be found, pour example in the nobvel I'm presently reading. "The Gumshoe, the witch and the virtual corpse", by Keith Hartman. Part Science fiction Detective story, part fantasy, part social commentary, it's an exciting, engrossing travel in the depths of your imagination! Read it, it's fun!