When I was getting my bachelor’s degree in philology we were taught to analyze fiction texts of different epochs and genres, to understand how these texts are constructed. Throughout my studies I was constantly trying to figure out what made classical texts of Russian (or foreign) literature so great. Why they became classical texts? What made them so incredible and important for generations of people that they are now still considered to be standards of great texts?
It is a very complicated question and I think there is no single correct answer to it, but now I have finally come up with sort of a list of particular things which distinguish a quality fiction text from an average one.