Good Story Checklist?

The Greensboro Review Editor Terry L. Kennedy writes in his introduction to issue #104 about trying to determine what makes “a good story” and the idea of creating a checklist for submissions:

“A checklist for ‘a good story’ might make my editorial deliberations easier, but it wouldn’t be good for my staff or for the magazine. And I’m not so sure readers really want exact restrictions on a story, not anymore. What if a story has a memorable setting but there’s no plot, nothing happens? A la Seinfeld. Where does that leave us? There are too many intangible aspects with which to blur the lines. . . I guess what I’m working my way around to is this: it’s not that I’m incapable of creating a checklist as that I don’t really believe, in my editorial heart of hearts, that I should. In the end, the best stories might just be the ones that do the things we thing a short story writer shouldn’t attempt. But by doing them well, they win our hearts and make us shout, ‘This one; this is the one!'”