Things that should never be done:

Make a noun "feminine"

e.g., Female authors calling themselves authoress, or any other word that people feel the need to tack "-ess" onto the end to show that this person is a woman. Normally, it's feminists who think that having their own word for something makes it a radical sign of equality. I hate to break it to you, but having a separate term for a woman anything implies that a woman does not perform whatever activity it is on an equal level with men, therefore requiring a separate term to highlight the distinction. An author is not a male writer, it is simply a writer; there is no gender distinction. By this same token, an 'authoress' is not a female writer, it is an idiot.

So called "txt tlk"

The internet is not Wheel of Fortune. You do not need to "buy a vowel." They are free, just as the other letters on your keyboard are. If 'great' takes so much longer to type than 'gr8' you need to stop using a computer until you learn how to type.

Tips for writing successful fanfiction:

1. Take the history, locations, and all other important story information. Completely ignore it. Put everybody in high school or something.

2. Insert yourself as a character. Make sure he/she is very attractive, skilled, intelligent, and generally better than everybody else. All the characters in the story should lust after them.

3. All the characters should listen to all your favorite bands. It's cool.

4. Make everybody gay, completely disregarding any and all evidence to the contrary.

5. "Ugly" characters are not actually ugly. The original author was lying and these characters actually represent the pinnacle of human beauty.

6. The red squiggly lines that appear under some of the words as you type are pretty. Try to get as many as you can.

7. The "enter" key is used to keep the title, main body of the work, and the author's notes separate. It shouldn't be used anywhere else

8. The use of punctuation is purely optional.

It should be noted that, while not necessary, following all of these guidelines when writing will rank the story amongst the best fiction ever written.