A sample of fifteen short stories, taken from the universe of short stories in ten hard-cover literature anthologies, was investigated to determine which characteristics of fiction would be most appealing to a panel of ninth grade student judges. The responses of seventeen ninth grade student judges were recorded on fourteen rating scales patterned after Osgood's semantic differential. A panel of English education specialists rated the stories on fourteen scales designed to produce numerical assessments of several elements of fiction that are often discussed in high school literature programs. In addition, the experts completed the fourteen student judge scales as they perceived the scales would be completed by a group of ninth grade students. The results indicated that student judges preferred stories with a clear pilot; there was a high correlation between the evaluative set of scales and the readability-clarity scales; stories rated by the panel of experts in the adolescent characteristics were evaluated favorably by the student judges at a significant level; and student judges and experts agreed on nearly all aspects of the story ratings--evaluative, readability-clarity, thematic and familiar. (Author/WR)