*Disclaimer*
What I've typed here are a bunch of my own pbservations and beliefs.  
They may be wrong, they may be right.  I think many of them are pretty 
close to the mark, but again, that's my personal thought.
The examples are mine.  They're not put forth as a shining example of 
brilliant writing; I'm just trying to illustrate what I'm talking about.  


On Fri, 12 Apr 1996, Shannon and Tim Richmeyer  and Panda wrote very wisely:

First off, for beginning writers, I suggest a character sketch. Write 
down the whole history of the characters you are going to use. Be as 
detailed as possible. This should give you a 'handle' on how they will 
react, think, talk, ect...

Don't rely on just physical descriptions. You can describe a character 
in detail and still have it be flat.
Nervous ticks or habits are wonderful. Does the character run it's 
fingers through its hair when anxious. Drum it's fingers on a surface, 
chew it's nails, play with it's hair, twiddle pencils, ect...
Describe body language in detail, these are clues we use in real life.

A suggestion I once saw was to think through how your character would 
react in different situations.  What would he do and say if the cashier 
at McDonald's got his order wrong?  What would she do and say if a 
complete stranger whistled at her?

And _why_ do they react this way?  Maybe he's calm and patient because he 
used to work at a fast-food place and know the kind of stress the 
employees have; maybe she runs away shaking because an ex-boyfriend once 
tried to rape her.

Describe a characters voice, use it. Is it sweet, tenor, a rumble, cold 
and clipped? If there is an accent, use it but make sure you can pull it 
off in the dialouge. (This is a hell of a lot harder than it seems.)
Is there a pet phrase?

Be careful with accents and dialects.  If overdone even a tiny bit, they 
can make reading very difficult (see _Uncle Tom's Cabin_ and _Tess of the 
D'Urbervilles_ for some slow dialect/accent reading.  Great books, but 
overuse of that.)

Don't be afraid to go inside the characters thoughts. Use them as you 
would dialouge.

Yes!  But be careful not to get bogged down in interior monologues.

Make sure to give your characters flaws. Perfect people are boring.
General rule of thumb: The more powerful the character is, the more 
flawed it should be. (regular people with little problems are not going 
to be the 'movers' and 'shakers')

  If I'd learned ths ten years ago, I would be lightyears ahead of where I 
am now.  
  Think of your favorite characters (from litereature, anime, whatever).  
I'll bet you money they all have flaws.

Villans: don't make 'em so evil that the reader can't find a spot of 
sympathy for them. After all, 'good' is defined by what side of the line 
you are standing on. A hero to the villan IS the villan and evil by 
thier definition.

  In Terry Goodkind's wonderful book, _Wizard's First Rule_, the old 
sorceror, Zed, explains this to the hero.  Zed tells him that the bad guy is 
acting the way he is because he honestly believes it is right, and that 
the bad guy sees Zed and the hero in the same way they see him.

Punctuation: Watch where you put commas and apostrophes. Commas often
go before the words 'and' and 'but' to clarify two different parts of a
sentence. Also note EXACTLY where commas are placed in dialogues.
Apostrophes can be a bitch. Compound words like "weren't", "we're" and "its"
and "it's" can
cause confusion if you forget or misplace the apostrophe. Readers ALWAYS
seem to pick up on those easily. Once you get those down it becomes
second-nature to write them correctly.

  Yes, readers notice!  Even if they don't know exactly what the correct 
punctuation or spelling is, they'll know something is wrong.
  I've never really had problems with spelling or punctuation (except for 
typos! ^_^), probably because I read constantly when I was a kid.  But 
there are some good grammar books out there, my personal favorite being 
Strunk and White's _Elements of Style_. (It's a thin book, don't worry. ^_^)

Dialouge is one of the hardest things to carry off and have it sound 
natural.

  True.  To improve your dialogue, listen to people talk.  Eavesdrop in 
restaurants, listen to conversations at the mall, notice what people say 
during movies.

The punctuation of it depends on how the quoted phrase and discriptions 
are structured.

Lets see if I can come up with an example:

He said, "No."

"No." It was a statement full of total belief.

Yep.  Also:

"No," he said.

Biggest thing to avoid in dialouge is the 'he/she said' syndrome. It's 
tempting, expecially when the dialouge is flying fast and furious, but 
avoid it at all costs.

  Um, if you're saying what I think you're saying, I have to disagree.  
Use 'said'.  Readers are accustomed to it, and their eyes go right over 
it.  AVOID other verbs like 'replied', 'screamed', 'cried', etc.  Those 
have the effect of snagging the reader's eye and drawing attention away 
from the dialogue.  Also AVOID 'he said angrily' and 'she said sadly'.  
SHOW us that he's mad and that she's upset.

"No," he said angrily.  - as vs. -
"No," he said, bringing his fist down onto the keyboard.
"But he needs us!" she said sadly.  - as vs. -
"But he needs us!"  She wanted to say more, but stopped, afraid the words 
would come out as sobs.

  Exception: If the character says something in a way that changes its 
meaning, you can use a different verb.  (Still stay away from 'he said 
angrily', though.)
  "You're the most beautiful baby in the world," she said.
Here, we probably assume that she is speaking in a pleaseant tone of 
voice, especially if she happens to be the baby's mother.  'She cooed' 
or 'she said sweetly' is redundant, unnecessary, and distracting.
  And on the other hand:  
  "You're the most beautiful baby in the world," she growled.  
Different feel, huh?  Especially if the speaker is the baby's mother....

Not every piece of dialouge needs to be 'marked' as to who (whom?) it's 
coming from. Also keep in mind that the dialouge and descriptions that 
accompany it are great places to develop/show characterizations.

Amen.  Dialogue is one of the best places for characterization.
And yes, you don't need a tag beside every statement.  Be sure to include 
enough, though, so the reader doesn't get lost.
  Another good way to tag the speaker is to use actions.

  "You know what you've done, don't you?" Ann said.
  Greg did not turn around.  "I did what I needed to."
  "What you needed to?  You _needed_ to run him off the bridge?"
  "Yes."  Greg rubbed the small scar on his left hand.  "I _needed_ to."
  "To get rid of your personal demons?"
  Finally he turned to face her. "Yes.  How do you get rid of yours?"  

Excellent advice! I do a fast outline and keep it at the bottom of my 
story and add to it as I go. It really will help you keep track of where 
you are and where you are going. Now wether it ends up in the place you 
origionally intended is another matter. ^_^

Outlines can be very helpful.  If you use one, remember: It _can_ be changed!
My outlines generally consist of notes and diagrams scattered acros a 
piece of paper.  Timelines, however, I cannot do without.  I fill in 
events as I write them, as well as planning out future occurences.  These 
are absolutely essential (for me) to coordinate characters' arrivals, 
departures, discoveries, meetings, near-misses, ages, etc.

laying down a foundation for
your story is crucial for readers to understand where and who the main
settings and characters are. Things like setting description, weather, time of
day and character descriptions are things that some fanfic authors leave out,

Huum...maybe think about what you're writing as painting a picture. Need 
all the background stuff to emphasize the main object of the image.

Be careful with description, too.  Yes, it is essential.  But stopping 
the story for a paragraph or two of description does exactly that: stops 
the story.  Try to work descriptions into the flow of the story.

  Sue ran, her chest tightening around her burning lungs.  As her feet left 
the ice-slicked pavement and hit packed dirt, she stumbled over the 
knobby roots of an oak.  Jagged branches cracked as she fell onto 
them.  Ann pulled herself up, glancing back.  The man was still there.  She 
turned and kept running until she was sure the trees were thick enough to 
hide her.

>From this paragraph, we know: Ann runs from pavement into a forest; there 
are oak trees in this forest and branches on the ground; she's trying to 
hide from a man; and she's having trouble breathing.
  We can guess that it's winter (ice on the pavement) and that she is 
frightened (tight chest, running away).  There are still many things we 
don't know, but those can be worked into other paragraphs.  Even this 
little amount of description gives readers something more to go on than a 
blank void.

Discipline: Organization. Research. Proper punctuation, spelling and
grammar. Dialogue structure. Story structure. Story direction. Character
motives. Character personalities. Setting and character appearance.
Continuity. Logistics and plausibility. All of these things and more are
important to a good story.

All of these things ARE what MAKE a good story. You leave them out, you 
get a so-so story. ^_^

If you get a story at all.. :)
Yes, these are the biggies.  Read the list.  Read it again.  I'll wait.

And a couple more things: 
Write the stuff you want to read.  Not interested in legal thrillers?  
Then don't try to write them.  Love Westerns?  Go ahead and attempt your 
own.  
But don't forget to do your research!  Readers will notice if you 
miscalculate travel speed, or misuse a legal term, or write Billy the Kid 
as being right-handed.  

My 2 pfennigs.
I've been writing for a long time now, but there's still a lot I don't 
know.  In fact, there will always be stuff I don't know.  Heck, there was 
stuff that _Hemingway_ didn't know (and Hemingway was a superbeing!).
As I said at the beginning of this post, a lot of what I've said may be 
wrong, though I think most of it is generally okay.  Any rule can be 
broken, if a purpose is served by doing so.

I write for two reasons: 1) I enjoy it and 2) I have to.  If I don't 
write, I get all out of kilter.  I'm not just a hobby writer (though you 
wouldn't know that by looking at my submissions to the FFML [nada so 
far]! :P).  But I still have fun with it.

-joyce, Disciple of Kasumi  
Joey-kun no iinazuke!

Kirna: You didn't mention us.
joyce: Why should I?
Kirna: Characterization excercises....?
joyce: Oh.  Yeah....Using Kirna, Macken, and Calla in my sigs has helped 
me with their characterization.  Having them speak in different 
situations gives me ideas about their personalities that I didn't have 
before.  During the Sig Wars, Psychowolf really screwed with Calla's mind 
by bringing up her dead daughter, Janis.  Before the Wars, I hadn't 
realized Calla was still that unbalanced about it, even though Janis 
died over two years ago.  I also didn't know that Calla blames herself 
for it, and that nearly everything she does now is a futile attempt to 
redeem herself.
Kirna: You didn't have to go into that much detail.