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This one is from Mortal Being who simplified the focused ideas of those categories and other/

~Rp'ing is generally focused on a character
~Poetry is generally focused on an emotion
~Short stories are generally focused on scenes (moments)
~Novels are generally focused on exploring ideas

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A great way to get into what you're writing and make it feel genuine and realistic falls 90% on your characters alone. 10% falls on your word usage/set up in general haha. But characters are an essential part to any story. So of course that's kind of a given, but how to use them to make sure you get a good story? Before I write a story I usually do the basic graph of a character, pretty much a profile that I'd post for an rp. Well that's all find and dandy, you can get some good stuff out of it but it doesn't dig too far into the depth of what probably should be done. Every character has a life, start to really look into it. Find out why they tick the way they do. Are they generally upset? Start writing out why they are upset. How they got that way, what they did before they got that way, can they change? What would it take to change? Stuff like that really helps build up your characters. Don't stop there though, for every character you have, no matter who they are, even if it just a bartender, do a good profile on it, something that stretches over 20 lines. Yes that's a large amount, but after I started to do that for my characters I ended up having stuff that tied in with each other, an intercaste history, and came up with tons of stuff that I'll be able to use in the future...granted I gained probably a page load of stuff that I won't use, but who knows I just might, it is there for me when I need it haha.

By the way, the thing that really brought this to my attention was watching Bleach and seeing how everything was just connected together through history of the characters. So once I got to thinking about that, I just got to thinking about how true it is, if you have great characters build up, no matter the plot, you're always going to have something going on with them.

Yukito Yu has a nice warning about how to keep people from claiming your writing as theirs!

If you're looking for a way to help prevent someone from stealing your work, the easiest way to do it is to snail-mail yourself a copy in a sealed envelope and when you get it store it away without opening it. That way if someone a month or a year later tries to claim your work as theres, you have a seal envelopped dated by the government postal service proving you wrote it on such and such a date. It's also good to include a few signatures of other people validating you wrote the piece.

creaturelover00 has given some more tips and help!

Commas. They are wonderful when used correctly. Admittedly, don't over use them because they can provoke run-ons. Commas and breaks are two of the writer's most important tools. They are required for they separate ideas and join them together in pending cases.
The hyphen should never be used in substitution for a comma. Commas join ideas, hyphens combine words to create hyphenated words (such as in-depth or year-old) or allow more information on a subject to be written. While commas also allow more information, they combine multiple clauses or phrases which is a job a hyphen can not perform. For instance:
When the boy left the house, he also left his cat, dog, and parakeet without someone to care for them.
A hyphen would be more useful in a sentence like this:
The boy left his pets -a cat, a dog, and a parakeet- without someone to care for them when he left the house.
Same sentence, but the usage of the tools are different.

Now for other stuff.

Breaks. Breaks are important tools in literary works. The separate ideas or help determine actions. One section may be about the environment and the other about your character.
Another use of breaks is when a new person speaks, a break is required. So if your protagonist and his brother were in a conversation, every time the pro. states something in alternation with his brother, make a break. If your character says something, does an action, and says something else; a break is not required nor recommended.
One more thing. Breaks do not need to skip a line. Just hit [enter] and that's a break.
lajksjdljda
[break] khaskdjhk
NOT:
asdhjask
[break]
[break] asdsaasdd
Although you may write as such if that is your style. However; in formal texts such as essays or an analysis, the latter is improper. A simple break and indent is all that is required.

Style. Every writer should have his own style. It's exactly like art. My writings will be different than someone's such as Mortal Beings. That includes grammatical usage and the vocabulary I use. He'll say confused, I'll say turbid; he'll say eradicate, I'll say expunge. Same denotation, different style.

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Whoot fer impatientacity. [I will shoot you if you thought I actually meant any of that spelling/made up English]
Callista's right, but using description too much will get you shot.
Here's a good ratio.
Per paragraph [eight sentences] :
-One can be the character's name.
-Two can be about something else [starting with the item or a verb].
+One of those two might be figurative language.
+The other can be with a secondary item in relation with your character, your character's actions, or your character's position.
-Three can start with pronouns.
+They must be rotated pronouns or the sentences must be spread apart.
+Two of the same pronouns in a row is just blegh.
-Two can begin with a verb or adjective but the sentence still be directly about your character.
+Like, "The gender..."


It's rare in stories to have a single paragraph that long anyways. Subjects are generally rotated between paragraphs to provide aspects of different views or different parts of the event. Either that or matching subject but the main focus will change [oddly worded, soz].

That's the format I -generally- follow. I guessed that mostly up, so don't hold me to it. Please.
Pronoun issues are problems that are easily missed, easily ignored, but hard as -heck- to fix. I wouldn't worry to much about it~