First, my former Laramie Writer's Group buddy Margo has put together an amazing, fantastic list of tips to make your plot more compelling. I love #17:
"17. Does your ending leave a few unanswered emotions or questions?(source: Cockeyed Caravan).A few unanswered questions and unresolved emotions are necessary to really have a profound effect. Great art shouldn’t be entirely satisfying. It has to disquiet us a little bit. It has to have a few holes for us to get stuck in."
Second, as a follow-up to Melanie's amazing link to The Writer's Diet, and it's test of the health of your prose, here are my two favorite posts with tips on how to decrease distancing words.
http://www.sfwa.org/2005/01/writerisms-and-other-sins-a-writers-shortcut-to-stronger-writing/
http://www.publishingcrawl.com/2012/05/21/filter-words/
Also, I'm forever sending this link to FFO submitters who have questions about the different types of rights publishers buy. It's long, but it's really good to know if you're offering your short stories up for publication.
And finally, one of my favorite links ever. Someone (Karen?) posted it on Facebook a while back. Go forth, Click squares. Be happy.
