I have an extremely hard time distinguishing good writing from bad writing. Despite the fact that I've read a LOT of books in my life, and even done quite a bit of writing myself, I genuinely never seem to know when writing is subpar. I watch movies and play games and tons of people say that the writing isn't good in them, and I thought it was totally fine. Like, it didn't occur to me to think that it was bad. I'm some kind of illiterate, I guess. Writing has to be absolutely ABYSMAL for me to notice that it's subpar. Like, "The Room" level of trash writing.
I mean, I can recognize especially good writing, as distinct from just "normal" writing. Planescape: Torment, Disco Elysium, these are games which clearly have superior writing. But the range of writing that just falls under "par for the course" for me seems to be very large. Much larger than most of the people I see reviewing and commenting on games and movies that I like. I never know if people are just too critical, or if I'm just a dullard with poor taste.
Sounds to me like you are unfortunately an artist. The only people who really care about the sort of distinctions we are talking about are those who have some passion for the subject and the truth is many, even those who write professionally, don't. It is also a topic with incredible nuance.
Human beings are complex and so are the things they create. Good writing is all about effective communication, distilling challenging ideas into simple expression. but based upon personal experiences some people will require less effort than others from individual authors. Its also why we love to discuss film and literature amongst ourselves. In reference to your statements, there is writing then there is story telling and they are two very different things. Stephen King, for instance, is a half assed writer but an extremely gifted storyteller. His concepts are wildly implausible, but his characters are usually grounded and well conceived, and so long as one can identify with the people in a story those characters will often sell the reality of everything else. Many people have difficulty distinguishing between the two because it isn't obvious that they are immediately different. The same way someone looking at a V8 for the first time may not necessarily know the intake manifold from the exhaust manifold. It all looks the same if you don't know what you are looking at. Anyone interested will figure it out for themselves with enough time.
There is also the fact that each of us like things which are objectively bad. It is very, very difficult to acknowledge something isn't as good as it could be when it is satisfying, especially when it is very satisfying, but we won't discuss this because otherwise we will find ourselves out in the weeds. Just think about the pizza you buy because they deliver as opposed to the pizza you will buy if you are willing to make a drive. Satisfying can be good, but isn't necessarily so while even things which are well executed may not be appealing.
