5 Fiction Hazards to Watch For
1) No suicide endings. Yeah, sometimes they work fine, but in the stories of beginning writers they are usually just a melodramatic and overly easy way for your main character to get out of his/her problems—and for you as a writer to avoid really dealing with (resolving) whatever plot situation you've set up.
2) Don't start with a tricky, clever plot. This almost always results in a mere sketch of a story with a moderately interesting twist of some kind and no character, scene, theme, or setting development. I.e, a bad Twilight Zone script . Try starting instead with an interesting, fully imagined and interesting character. For your plot, you can then just put that character into some situation which will test him/her in some way, or force that particular person to face their worst fears, foibles, weakness, conflicts. Examine Ray Carver's "Cathedral" or F.Scott Fitzerald's "Babylon Revisited' for good examples of just such a strategy.
3) Student stories virtually NEVER have adequate character development. DEVELOP YOUR CHARACTERS INTO BELIEVABLE, COMPLEX, "ROUND," FULLY DRAWN, MEMORABLE HUMAN BEINGS. Your reader should be able to distinguish one character from another. Before you hand in your draft for workshopping, ask yourself: is this the kind of story which will need good, interesting characters, and does it have them?" For help developing good characters, see tips under Harmonious Confusion.
4) Develop scenes fully. You should be able to point to where each scene begins and ends, and you should consider which ones may need to be fleshed out with more detail and action. Don't hand in your draft until you've give it this consideration.
5) Fiction drafts often include an excessively long opening and initial exposition. This is to be expected, since many writers need to do a little "throat clearing" before they really find their pace in a story. Before handing your work in, think about whether it would be improved if you started it a little further in—in medias res, or "into the action." Trim some of that inital slack out and the piece will have a more vital, compelling start.