I would also like to mention strong word choice. How you word things will either grab the readers attention or they can lose interest .

What makes a story appealing? A plot with a good flow and decent enough grammar. Why decent grammar? It makes it a lot easier for the reader to read and follow along with the story. Writers like me kind of go along with the flow and do not plan the story out. Not everyone is good at that so you should plan the story out before actually reading. Another tip is not using too man clichés (ex: love triangles, opposites falling love, love at first sight).

I hope this somewhat understandable.

interesting background, plot, characters, the author did researches, the problems that arised, the things that make our adrenaline gets to work. mostly 'action' stories, mystery, adventure.
i do read a lot of romance too but i can sleep on that.
recently i liked royals AU stories. does anyone have recommendations? preferably but i read straight too

Character development is an essential, I really love when characters become complex and in depth, it makes it more interesting to read about them.

plot and good caracter work, if the caracter is not making me be able to kind of predict some events it is not good i also do not like really obvius innocent girl story plots

For me, curiosity about the plot. Like what will happen next and the feelings like 'I wanna read more, I wanna know more' will come inside! xD Next, the flow of the plot have to be good and not messy at all. But if it have become messy, then you have to know how to cover it. Humour is also important cause, who doesn't like comedy?! xD

I look for plots that interest me, such as enemies-to-lovers, or a school AU, or even just a regular non-AU story. I can't and won't read a story that has bad sentence fluency and grammar either. The only stories that really make me skip sleeping just to read it are well-written and interesting in my opinion.

Good plots or just something Really Funny! And when the editing is good on top of that, and the main couple has to be cute togetherXD