Many may wonder what exactly it takes to make a story "good". They often question their writing ability or how it will be perceived by others. To tell the truth, even average skills make for a good read. Only a grade-school drop-out could butcher basic grammar enough to offend this site enough to hate a written work based solely on the misuse of the English language.

No, instead, it is usually what people write more than how they write it that'll leave people shaking their heads, but there isn't any mystery to this; if you are looking for a surefire way to make what you write acceptable, there are only five simple rules to obey:

1. Don't be stupid.
2. Don't be emo.
3. Don't be a magical child destined to save the world.
4. Don't recap what just happened.
5. Make stuff happen.

That's all there is to it. What? Do you need more?

Don't be stupid.

Taking a step back and thinking for a second may make quite a bit of difference. If you don't know whether or not an idea of yours will fit in a story, you may be onto something. So many times, a serious story will be ruined when a horribly unfitting (and typically not even funny) comedy piece is introduced. Use the tone set by the previous posts in the story to dictate what is or is not appropriate: a comedy shouldn't have a dark, brooding character introduced, a dark story shouldn't have a zany comedy piece added, and murderous hitmen shouldn't suddenly team up with a cheerful little girl.

Don't be emo.

I know a lot of you are thinking "Wasn't this just covered?" For the most part, yes, but whiny stories that attempt to be emotional and relatable just come off as annoying as the real life people who behave the same way. Characters in a story shouldn't waste time reflecting on how much pain is in their life; if anything, they should be doing something about it. Characters overcoming problems is typically what a story is about.

Don't be a magical child destined to save the world.

This isn't a metaphor or some figure of speech. People -- especially children -- destined to save the planet from some prophesied doom are very cliché. Really, any sort of cliché could be inserted into this rule, but recently, it seems this one comes up a lot. A year or two back, it would have been assassins. And when has a cliché ever been a good thing?

Don't recap what just happened.

Don't know what to write? Well, whatever you do, make sure you don't just paraphrase what recently happened in the story. Readers do have attention spans, yet despite this fact, recapping rears its ugly head far too often. Written words should have no echo; a reader shouldn't have to read the same thing twice in a row. Reading the same thing many times in succession is annoying. No one wants to read one idea rephrased in different ways again and again.

Is this getting through yet? Maybe if one is adding to a story, this pattern won't be noticeable, but when reading a story in full, this repetition is very apparent and uninteresting.

Make stuff happen.

If a post is written, and nothing happens, why was it written? And why would anyone read it? They certainly wouldn't by choice. A story's plot should progress. If one reads a post to see that nothing transpired, then what exactly is happening? Wasted time, that's what. Typically, the useless recapping mentioned beforehand.

In the case of a comedy, it is not so important that something happen as it is for something funny to happen.