In my stories, I strive always to be unique. Such should be the case with all writers. Sadly, on a site like FanFiction, originality does not always abound.

Read anything and everything by Orson Scott Card and John Steinbeck.

The Top 3 things wrong with an unfortunately vast majority of Fan Fiction stories

1. Purple Prose: This is a problem much worse than any others. Mostly because half the time, it isn't even recognized as a problem, but rather 'writing skills'. There are a ton of people who post on this site thinking they're the greatest writer ever to grace this humble Earth, and in order to show off their abilities, they use as many long, complicated words as they can think of. Often even words that they can't think of, but rather that they found on Thesaurus.com! Newsflash! Big words don't make a story better. More often than not, they make it worse. And now I will haltingly and unceasingly explain without a flinch in the intravenous eyelash of my nasal cavity why this is true. Actually, I think I just did.

2. Grammar: Or, as those who are most guilty of it would say, 'grammer'. Not much explinashun recwired heer.

3. Originality: And the lack thereof. Now excuse me while I go write that great story I've been planning about an eleven-year old boy named Parry Hotter who finds out he's a wizard, then becomes an angsty teenager who secretly loves Hermione.

The angst bit doesn't help the originality problem, it just makes this a seriously creepy story.