Have you ever heard people like Marty Scorsese or Quentin Tarantino talk about what makes a good movie? I'm sure you've watched any number of shows on VH1, where bands talk about what makes a good rock or pop song great. It's why Annie Dillard wrote The Writing Life. Hang around novelists or genre fiction writers, and you'll start to hear about what makes a novel great, story arcs,etc...