Fanfic nit-picks

[Kyuukyoku no Seimei]

Cross post from MW

Fanfic Nit-Picks
By Eon Storm

Call me a hipocrite but a ton of things in fanfiction piss me off. I kinda wrote this because I'm frustrated but mostly to tell people what not to write/do in your writing.

• Improper Spacing.
  It's almost worse than bad spelling. It's when you only skip one line [hit enter once] to start a new paragraph.
  Like this, as opposed to
  
  This.
  
  When you read a story like this, it looks scrunched together and hard to read - especially if the fic is insanely long.
  
  Another less-common example is when you make your own word wrap.
  
  Like if you
  wrote your
  whole story
  like this. This
  is terribly an-
  noying, and
  everyone needs
  to stop doing it.
  
  Would you like reading a whole story like that? No. So don't do it. Even txt files word wrap when uploaded to fanfiction.net.
  
• A couple of specific characters
  This isn't as common, either, but I'll go for it since it bugs me.
  
  “ ” Smart quotes. Ones that wrap the text. Microsoft word automatically makes them. Usually they aren't a HUGE deal, but if you typo and forget one, sometimes they fark up and get all screwy, then they look terrible. I personally go out of my way to replace those characters with this: " on both sides.
  
  … One-character elipsis. I don't know, it looks really, really stupid. It's even worst when someone puts spaces between them like so: . . .
  
  Sometimes it skips a line, like this. .
  . and looks just terrible. So do a favor, do them the right way: ...
  
• Alternate/flopping spellings
  Some characters, like Inuyasha, have alternate name spellings. Inu-Yasha, Inu Yasha, InuYasha...
  
  I personally will not read a fic where his name is spelling with two words or hypenated. That's not his name.
  
  And it's worse when you decide to switch between spellings in different parts of the fanfic.
  
  Flopping for no reason...
  
  Jounouchi went to the store. Jyonochi ate a sammich.
  
  It's really frickin weird looking. Same goes for alternate names.
  
  Tailmon ate a crayon. Gatomon's teeth are purple.
  
  In that case it makes it seem like they're completely different people. In dialogue, it's a bit different. For example, nicknames, are often used, but at least they are usually used in succession, and not for no reason. Phoenix Wright doesn't mind being called Nick, but the people that call him Nick ALWAYS call him that. They don't say "Hey Nick! Let's get hamburgers! That ok, Phoenix?" ... DOESN'T THAT SOUND RETARDED?
  
• Too Short
  This is more common than you think. Most people, when they read fanfics, they intend on doing so for a while. If they are just getting into it and the chapter's over, it can be VERY irritating. For example, I don't read the little ministories in comic books, I just get to the real deal. I read a main comic to enjoy it, not to read 80000 shorties.
  
• Fanon
  Fanon, or events that someone won't just "get" if they read your fic... it would be nice to note about it. This generally means events or facts you made up in a previous installment, doesn't mean everyone's gonna get it. Asterisk it.

[~Daniel The Opossum~]

I agree with most of what you say except for the ellipses. I mean, that's actually what you're supposed to use. I'd use it more often, but I don't remember the ALT coding…

Two nit-picks that I have to add:

One: Dashes and Hyphens

"Danté--quite ticked, mind you--went out in an angry roid-rage."

Notice how I used -- and how I used -. You use either -- or — for dashes and - for hyphens. Get it riiiight.

Two: Grammar.

USE IT NAO.*‼*

That is all.

Also, I just saw that ALT 19 makes ‼. :0 *will now use it all the time*

[Kyuukyoku no Seimei]

‼ omg

Yeah the dash thing bugs me too.

But still, I don't like the ellipsis character.

[Knadow the Hechidna]

0.o okay. I really don't care as long as it keeps me entertained and I CAN ACTUALLY READ IT.
You. People you're tailking to.
I I
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