Bonus: Instead of coming up with cool or thoughtful names for futuristic technology, throw 'exo', 'plasma', 'neo', or a Greek Letter in front of the name of the none futuristic thing that your tech is based off of.
1) Making a character who's insane or crazy so you can evade having to develop a unique or interesting personality.
2) People who mistake unique or interesting back stories with tragedy.
Just because their parents died, doesn't make your character exciting or enticing.