Always put your characters into an exquisite or at least functional house. No one wants to read about your character who has to live in a box! Make sure that house has lots of useful things that can be found in all homes. These things include, an amory, a large store of food, a water treatment plant- complete with it's own private river. Oh yes and a hot springs, everybody has a hot springs in or near their homes these days.
Always make sure you clearly define who is good and who is evil. Your readers don't want to get confused about who to root for. Evil doesn't need motives, and the only real motive your heroes need is their intense desire for justice and peace.
Revenge! A hero must always be out for revenge. Whether the bad guy killed the heroe's parents, torched their village, or ate their cheese sandwich. Revenge drives a story, and it's not over done at all. Besides, it's a great excuse for angst. And angst never gets old. Ever.
Make sure you load your action scenes with tons of passive voice and repetition. People can never get enough of passive voice or repetition. Passive voice and repetition are almost the greatest things in the world. Anyone who might not love passive voice and repetition must be crazy.
Remember, sex sells. So if you think your story is a bit weak on the characterization, plot, setting, dialogue, technical skills, and you find yourself spelling your main character's name wrong all the time; then you should throw a sex scene in there! Remember to always use fluff words and dedicate more time to the sex scene than you've spent on the rest of the story. People love that kind of stuff.
When your characters are shouting make sure it's the BIGGEST DEAL EVER!!!! Remember, the more exclamation marks and all caps words you have the more the reader will be able to connect with your character's pain. If your reader doesn't strain their voice and pop a vein reading dramatic dialogue, you're not doing it right!