Hello world. I am going to come off as a grouchy intolerant asshole, once again, but given the migraine I have right now, it's to be expected. I am in the process of reading and critiquing a set of creative writing submissions for one of my online classes. This is not my first class,  just an additional one, and while I am by no means an expert, I do have some experience in this matter. So to anyone out there who may be in a similar course this semester, or feel like taking one, or just write for funsies, I have some helpful advise.
 

1. Spell-check. Proof read, then spell-check again. Then do some more proof reading. You know, catch  those your/you're affect/effect kind of things. Makes everyone else's life a little easier, and lets them focus on thematic and mechanics, and singing your praises as an author.
2. No one likes Manic Pixie Dream Girls. If you write the phrase "... had never met anyone like her before", I will smack you on the nose with a newspaper. Let that character trope die a painful death, please. Every story I've read so far this semester has had one. It is a crutch writers use when they can't write an interesting or endearing normal character, nor figure out how to have their main character grow as a person without being dragged out of their boring old stuffed shirts without some crazy bitch.
   
3. If your story is not set in a generic current day setting, give me a fucking time stamp. And if you flash back, and/or flash forward, give some context clues as to what the hell is happening, and when.
   
4. Keep the POV of down to only one main character if possible. I just finished reading a story that had 3 main characters that the narrative followed, and would occasionally have them occasionally recollect an additional character.  Confusing as hell.
5. Maintain a sense of past or present tense. This is a tricky one. Are we the audience viewing the story as it unfolds Live in front of a studio audience, or are we looking back upon the events after dust has all settled? Or are you book-ending your back-story with present day events in the initial and ending chapters?  Just pick on, and try to maintain it throughout. Actually if 98% of the story is flashback, consider removing that part, and writing it chronologically without the cold opens, and time jumps.
   
6. Show. Don't tell. Nobody likes long, tedious exposition for the sake of long, tedious exposition. 
7. Don't try to be a cartographer, tour guide, ichthyologist, or Dan Brown. Long winded, overly detailed, yet error filled exposition about too much of anything is a pain in the ass. I don't care that you know Manhattan like the back of hand, just tell me they went from A to B, not each and every street and corner they go on. But don't make up a whole bunch of shit either. Most good detail questions can be answered with a simple Google search, or even a post on a Forum.
   
8. Fuck Chekhov, and the guns he rode in on.
9. ETA: If you are on a fucking Mac, please be considerate enough to your classmates to correctly save your files. I have had to add ".rtf" to 3 papers this week to be able to properly open them, and it is really annoying. Several fellow students just write comments about how they can't download or open the files, and it screws the whole feedback system up. Jerks.
10.   hack745 adds: "Also, people need to write endings according to their characters, not because they want the story to end a certain way. I can't even begin to tell you about the amateur stories I've read that were totally ruined by the predictable and cliche ending they tacked on.  Oh yeah, and, "...it was all a dream," was never a good ending. Stop. Fucking. Using. It. "