So hey there. Welcome to my profile.

Three things, right away:

1.) Please ignore anything I've posted. It's shit and I know it, and I KNOW it makes me a hypocrite, but I'm keeping it there until my hard drive has regained my trust. And I'm constantly losing my USB drive, so that's not an option.
2.) Whatever you read below is highly subjective, because it's my OPINIONS. O.o
3.) Please flame me. I love to argue!

Notes I have made while reading the (good) fanfiction on this site.
These are opinions, but they are common faults in many fanfictions, no matter what the genre, popularity, or plot. I don't intend to be insulting; this is all stream of consciousness.

1. Honestly, nobody cares how big your vocabulary is. Just please make it readable. Nobody is going to read your fics if every third word is sodality, orfissiparous, or opprobrium.

2. If you are going to put random Japanese into your writing, use it sparingly, and preferably just with suffixes (-sensei, -kun) or words that don't translate well. Catchphrases are iffy, but occasionally tolerable, as long as they don't have a smooth english translation (ex. insults can translate approximately, but dattebayo could conceivably stay, despite being both annoying and translatable--believe it!). However, shoving ja ne, usuratonkatchi, ohayo, arigato, and the like is an unacceptable application of Engrish. Shtoppit.

3. On a related note, be consistent with the European and American spellings. Swapping between theatre and color is fine, theater and theatre is not.

4. Do not fuck with the comma. It is a close friend of mine and I will abuse you if you abuse it. This is not to say that commas should be used sparingly--feel free to stick them where you feel you need them. Grammatically, though, commas belong around transitions, separating clauses, and between items in a list. Also, ellipses are made of periods (...) not commas (,). Yes, people have done that.

5. Remember who is speaking. If the kid is 4, he talks like a 4-year-old. If he's 20, write him that way. Unless your toddler is a genius, I doubt they know what "commiserate" means.

6. Also, few people actually says "oops" unless they are particularly adorable, trying to be cute, or being apologetic/sarcastic. It usually doesn't just show up in natural conversations. Or at least not the ones that I have.

7. For battle fics, especially manga like Naruto, please translate the moves and jutsus. Otherwise I have absolutely no idea what's going on. I don't care if Giant Swirling Dragon Fist of Wind Blades sounds cooler in Japanese, I care that the main character just bitch-slapped the antagonist with a fist to the face. Which I may not have understood if they just yelled out a series of unfamiliar japanese words.

8. First impressions are important. It doesn't matter SO so much what plot is revealed first chapter, but I decide immediately if I can handle the writing style. It's part of the reason I couldn't read PC Cast (published author of vampire romance novels)--she sounded like a teenager. I need someone with a more professional tone. Garth Nix writes FOR children, but he still sounds like a pro. There's an important distinction, and that comes from developing your voice as an author. It comes a lot with experience, though a good beta can help, so keep writing, keep reading, and keep using spellcheck.

9. Don't write a shitty summary. It doesn't matter if you can't summarize for crap, I'm much more likely to read if there is at least something vaguely resembling a lead-in. "Read to find out!" is a cop out, and "better summary inside" is only passable if there's at least a little summary there already.

10. If someone is drawing out word (ex. Hello!), they almost always draw out the VOWELS. And not for a ridiculously long periods of time. "Hellooo!" compared to "Hellooooooooo!"

11. Keep names within a theme. If they're Renaissance, stay Renaissance. Japanese with Japanese, and modern English where it belongs. There should NEVER be a Sasuke x Juliette. That's just silly anyway, since you might as well make Juliette a character. Pseudonames like Juri, are ok, but still, a little effort to find a realistic name can go a long way.

12. lol, one does not "poof away." Bitch, please.

13. One also does not label flashbacks as FLASHBACK. Put the flashback itself in italics.

14. Speaking of italics, thoughts should also be in italics, but beware. If you are going to use thoughts, you must use them OFTEN. Not every page necessarily, but often enough that we the readers have pretty reasonable insight into how and why they think. This is much easier to do in first person ("I" fics) and third person limited ("s/he" following just one person's POV and you can see into only one person's head). If you end up trying to do third person omniscient ("s/he" where you can see everyone's actions AND thoughts), you are going to give yourself a headache trying to keep track of how everyone acts externally, internally, in public, private, with friends, and then ALSO try to express all these differences while including internal dialogue. I would suggest cutting out thought processes in general if you are unsure. Body language can convey most thoughts reasonably well.

15. Be careful when a character is arguing with his/herself. It can come off as cheesy and false.

16. Please do not start with reasonably-lengthed chapters (ex. 2000-8000 words) and then let them get longer and longer and longer until your readers start to dread your next update because it's literally 114,000 friggin' words of nonstop awesome. JUST BREAK IT DOWN. I'm sure there's a scene break somewhere, and the fans can survive cliffhangers. Really. As long as another chapter is forthcoming.

17. Fanservice is awesome when done well. Ask someone with... experience if you've done it well, if you don't have the... experience... yourself. Speaking of which, I dunno why, but professional romance novelists agree, the technical and clinical words for things are awkward. "His soft tongue swirled expertly around her sensitive areola, and as she arched in pleasure, she felt the warm heat of his throbbing penis pulsating within her vagina" just sounds so much awkwarder than "his soft tongue swirled expertly around her sensitive nipple, and as she arched in pleasure, she felt the warm heat of his throbbing arousal pulsating within her." (Discalimer: I don't do porn. Sue me.)

18. Your beta is your bestest buddy, and if you hate their goddamned guts, get a new one. Also, spellcheck.

19. If you wanna do a self-insert, do it like Stan Lee in the Marvel superhero movies--make it a cameo. Get in, get out, fap, and be done with it. EVERYONE hates a Mary Sue except you. If you see a character resembling you too much, that's probably who you want to change.

20. Do not approach the uncanny valley. Your characters should not be perfect: that's boring. So is irredeemability. Characters should be a semi-balanced compilation of good and bad, but be careful. If you make them too human, base them off your friends or whatnot, they become Mary Sues or Gary Stus or whatever the fuck. You have problems, I have problems, the whole damn world has problems, traumas, past horrors, I get it. But the characters' problems are a whole different can of worms. Draw from your experiences, don't recreate them.

That about sums it up for right now! :D If you wanna read an awesome fic mocking common CONTENT issues, read Those Lacking Spines by Organization VI. It is a Kingdom Hearts fic, but I don't think you need to know much about the game itself. Still, you can wiki the game just for some background knowledge. http://www.fanfiction.ws/s/2903858/1/