Jot down ideas as you have them otherwise you will forget. Every so often have a brainstorming session to generate ideas and to see what you can come out with and then expand on. Can you put some of your characters from a novel into short stories for mini adventures of their own?
Making Ideas Unique
When using inspiration from newspaper stories and so on, don’t lift them directly. Play safe. Add in your own unique ingredients to the basic mix. Not only will it lessen the risk of being sued by someone who was in the original story, your added extras will almost certainly make for a more interesting tale.
Empathy
Care about your characters. Make what they’re achieving realistic and something your readers will sympathize with. There’s got to be empathy there. Even a chilling villain has to have some trait, some wish your readers can identify with.
Passing of Time
Does the passing of time make sense in your tale? Have you checked for inconsistencies? Have you made your world come alive with seasons, the way days work and whether your characters work by whatever passes for day or night in your realm?
Read Through
Always read through your finished work at least twice, with decent intervals in between. You will pick up different errors on each occasion I promise. You will also wonder why you didn’t see such errors before. Give yourself plenty of time for reading your work through so when you do send it out, you know it’s the best it can be.
Conclusions
Does your tale progress to a natural conclusion based on what’s gone on in your story? Your tale should have a series of peaks and troughs before reaching the climax at the end of the story. And the troughs must be as interesting as possible. They’re good places to drop in sub-plots and information your readers need to know but this should still be so interesting your readers won’t know it’s a trough.