An open letter to fanfic writers
Jun. 18th, 2004 01:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenayI've been reading Eats, Shoots and Leaves this week, which is a fascinating book that I'd recommend anyone to read. The writer manages to be funny and entertaining while talking punctuation, a subject that I would have called yawn-worthy a week ago. Unfortunately, it's reminded me of one of my major pet peeves in fanfic: terrible punctuation and, related to it, terrible spelling. I know that most of us are just doing this for fun and I've heard a lot of people say, "But I don't care whether it's the next Ulysses - I just want to have fun writing it."
That's fine. I'm not going to condemn anyone who just wants to have fun with fanfic and therefore doesn't care whether their scripts are filled with errors and crappy characterisation. It's your right and it's my right not to read your fiction.
OTOH, nothing makes me close a fic faster than having numerous silly punctuation and spelling mistakes littered through the first paragraphs. I'm afraid that I'm not going to continue reading because a little voice in my head says that if you can't be bothered to get simple mistakes fixed, the writing quality is probably going to be terrible too. I'll freely admit that I have an internal beta who mentally corrects all the little mistakes I see in writing. Most of the time I'm not aware of it if they are small mistakes or things I can get past. Getting pulled out of a fic because a mistake is so huge and annoying I can't get past it annoys me. So I suppose this is an open letter to fanfic writers about making your fics readable:
Dear fanfic writers,
In order to bring your writing to a wider audience and stop annoying/disgusting most of the rest of us, please could you bear the following in mind the next time you send out a fic:
1. Sentences are ended thusly: there is a full-stop (period for the Americans), a space and then the capital letter at beginning of the first word of the next sentence. For example:
One end of the square was devoted to an ever-changing group of musicians. There seemed to be no particular order to who played or sang.
Note the space between 'musicians.' and 'There'. Do not leave it out. I have seen fics where the space has been left out between every sentence and I'm afraid that I have closed those fics without even reading a word. It's not a huge thing, but it makes your fic much more readable and isn't that what you're trying to achieve?
2. It is simple to learn the rules of apostrophes. Please find a suitable book (Eats, Shoots and Leaves explains it admirably) and learn them. In fact, the apostrophe should be one of the punctuation marks that is never abused and yet it's one of the biggest victims. I have seen bizarre contractions out there with either too many or no apostrophes. I have seen multiple Daniels when what was called for was a singular "Daniel's". Please learn the correct usage of this mark. Please. I'm begging you.
3. It's not punctuation, but could you all please spell the character names correctly? I have seen countless Zanders, Zenas, Daniells, Teelcs and every other variation of incorrect character names you can imagine. You're obviously a fan of the show and I therefore expect you to spell the names correctly. I openly apologise for leaving out the second 'L' in "O'Neill" when I was writing Making Rules and have always checked to make sure it was properly spelled since then. Please show the same consideration.
4. Exclamation marks. These look great used sparingly, but they do not need to end every other sentence. Like this! And this! Thank you.
5. The comma is not as easy to learn as the apostrophe, but please at least try to get it right. If you're uncertain about it then find a beta reader who is good on punctuation. You can even try reading it aloud to yourself to find out whether the comma you have put in or deleted makes any sense. I will freely admit that I often go on a comma purge during my pre-beta edit. My beta reader then re-inserts all the commas that I have removed. Sometimes I go in the other direction and add too many commas - my beta reader removes them. My comma usage has improved over the years by taking careful note of Ali's comments on them when she returns my scripts. Commas, used properly, should improve the sense of a sentence. I have seen commas randomly inserted where they have no business being, rendering the sentence incomprehensible.
6. Pick up any fiction book from the shelves of a good bookstore and you will see speech marks and their associated punctuation used correctly. So why do I see them abused so often in fanfiction? And why are so many fanfic writers insisting on removing the commas used in speech? Here are a few minor points.
When the attribution of speech comes after the speech, there is a comma within the speech marks like so:
"It's a lovely song," Sam said.
It could just as equally say 'said Sam' and the comma would still be needed. Do not replace the comma with a full-stop because that is wrong and makes my head hurt.
If the attribution of speech comes before, there is also a comma like so:
Jack said, "The doc might have to check Carter out, though."
Isn't this easy? So why do so many of you insist on missing out those vital commas? There are only two times when you do not need a comma. When there is some other terminator at the end of the speech, like so:
"It's beautiful, isn't it?" Daniel said softly.
But you will note that there is still some form of terminator. The same pattern applies to exclamation marks. In these cases, if you are using 'said Daniel softly' the 'said' is not capitalised. Please remember this important fact. 'Said' never needs to be capitalised except in the way I have used it in this sentence.
A comma is also not required if the speech is a self-contained statement with no need for attribution or where the person who is speaking is made clear in another sentence. For example:
Sam grinned. "I can't sing either."
"You dance?"
"No."
Chichula laughed. "You dance. I show."
"No, no . . ."
7. Please put a question mark at the end of a direct question. There are no exceptions to this rule.
8. It is easy to make typos. I do it all the time; however, large numbers of typos should not appear in your finished scripts. If you are writing in Word with the squiggly lines turned on there is absolutely no excuse for the appearance of mangled words that don't appear in any dictionary. The squiggly lines are annoying sometimes and the dictionaries don't contain every word in existence, but if you have them turned on and check all words underlines in red (looking them up in an actual book dictionary if you think the word is spelled correctly) you will eliminate half the mistakes I see and make your beta's life much easier.
9. Please get a beta. They will be able to find all sorts of things in your manuscript before it gets out to the wider world. One of the important things they will find is where your typos have produced real words that were therefore not picked up by the squiggly lines, yet are still the wrong words. It should not be too difficult for a competent beta to remove all confusions of 'their', 'there' and 'they're' or 'suit' and 'suite' and you will have the undying gratitude of a lot of readers.
10. I've only seen it done a couple of times, but not splitting your text into paragraphs is abominable. Opening a fic to find an unbroken block of text is depressing and I always end up closing it without even attempting to read the first line. In a similar vein, the standard on the Internet is to have each paragraph separated by a blank line. This makes it easier to read on the screen. The paragraph tag in HTML takes care of it for you so there should be no excuse. Why, then, do I find 300KB fics written with no blank line separating the paragraphs? A simple link break works absolutely perfectly on a printed page of text, but unfortunately not everyone is going to print out your masterpiece. Please lay it out on the screen so that I can read it without going cross-eyed.
11. In that vein, please code your fics with re-sizable text. If you have simply coded it into HTML (or had a friend do it or a WYSIWIG editor or whatever) without any fancy fonts, it will appear on the screen at whatever size the reader's browser has been set to. I have mine set to 'Largest' because I get a headache reading pages of teeny text on my screen. I have no problem with your main indexes and so on being in 10pt Arial, but I'd like to be able to size your pages of fiction so that I can read them comfortably. If you're not sure how to do this, go to my feedback form on The Haven and email me - I'll be happy to walk you through it.
12. Some people print your fic out on paper to read at a later date or while they're on holiday. Sadly, if you've coded your fic to be at a particular screen width it may not be possible to print it. I've tried printing one author's work only to find that I was missing the last two words off each line because she'd set her fic inside a table that was just a little to wide for my page. Minimal formatting works best on the actual fic pages. If you must have fancy formatting, please provide a printer friendly page with simple formatting that will print correctly. If you want a good example of either of points 11 and 12 take a look at the sites in my links bar - the FDAS site even provides a 'print this page' button.
I can't tell you to avoid bad characterisation or poor plotting because a lot of that is in the eye of the beholder. You should write what you want to write and if that happens to be what I classify as drivel, so be it. But please could you read these points and at least ensure that your work is readable. I'm afraid that I, for one, will not be reading your fic if there are so many simple faults in it that I can't get beyond the first paragraph and I know that I am not alone in this.
Regards,
Selenay
Fanfic writer and reviewer.
Here endeth today's lesson.
That's fine. I'm not going to condemn anyone who just wants to have fun with fanfic and therefore doesn't care whether their scripts are filled with errors and crappy characterisation. It's your right and it's my right not to read your fiction.
OTOH, nothing makes me close a fic faster than having numerous silly punctuation and spelling mistakes littered through the first paragraphs. I'm afraid that I'm not going to continue reading because a little voice in my head says that if you can't be bothered to get simple mistakes fixed, the writing quality is probably going to be terrible too. I'll freely admit that I have an internal beta who mentally corrects all the little mistakes I see in writing. Most of the time I'm not aware of it if they are small mistakes or things I can get past. Getting pulled out of a fic because a mistake is so huge and annoying I can't get past it annoys me. So I suppose this is an open letter to fanfic writers about making your fics readable:
Dear fanfic writers,
In order to bring your writing to a wider audience and stop annoying/disgusting most of the rest of us, please could you bear the following in mind the next time you send out a fic:
1. Sentences are ended thusly: there is a full-stop (period for the Americans), a space and then the capital letter at beginning of the first word of the next sentence. For example:
One end of the square was devoted to an ever-changing group of musicians. There seemed to be no particular order to who played or sang.
Note the space between 'musicians.' and 'There'. Do not leave it out. I have seen fics where the space has been left out between every sentence and I'm afraid that I have closed those fics without even reading a word. It's not a huge thing, but it makes your fic much more readable and isn't that what you're trying to achieve?
2. It is simple to learn the rules of apostrophes. Please find a suitable book (Eats, Shoots and Leaves explains it admirably) and learn them. In fact, the apostrophe should be one of the punctuation marks that is never abused and yet it's one of the biggest victims. I have seen bizarre contractions out there with either too many or no apostrophes. I have seen multiple Daniels when what was called for was a singular "Daniel's". Please learn the correct usage of this mark. Please. I'm begging you.
3. It's not punctuation, but could you all please spell the character names correctly? I have seen countless Zanders, Zenas, Daniells, Teelcs and every other variation of incorrect character names you can imagine. You're obviously a fan of the show and I therefore expect you to spell the names correctly. I openly apologise for leaving out the second 'L' in "O'Neill" when I was writing Making Rules and have always checked to make sure it was properly spelled since then. Please show the same consideration.
4. Exclamation marks. These look great used sparingly, but they do not need to end every other sentence. Like this! And this! Thank you.
5. The comma is not as easy to learn as the apostrophe, but please at least try to get it right. If you're uncertain about it then find a beta reader who is good on punctuation. You can even try reading it aloud to yourself to find out whether the comma you have put in or deleted makes any sense. I will freely admit that I often go on a comma purge during my pre-beta edit. My beta reader then re-inserts all the commas that I have removed. Sometimes I go in the other direction and add too many commas - my beta reader removes them. My comma usage has improved over the years by taking careful note of Ali's comments on them when she returns my scripts. Commas, used properly, should improve the sense of a sentence. I have seen commas randomly inserted where they have no business being, rendering the sentence incomprehensible.
6. Pick up any fiction book from the shelves of a good bookstore and you will see speech marks and their associated punctuation used correctly. So why do I see them abused so often in fanfiction? And why are so many fanfic writers insisting on removing the commas used in speech? Here are a few minor points.
When the attribution of speech comes after the speech, there is a comma within the speech marks like so:
"It's a lovely song," Sam said.
It could just as equally say 'said Sam' and the comma would still be needed. Do not replace the comma with a full-stop because that is wrong and makes my head hurt.
If the attribution of speech comes before, there is also a comma like so:
Jack said, "The doc might have to check Carter out, though."
Isn't this easy? So why do so many of you insist on missing out those vital commas? There are only two times when you do not need a comma. When there is some other terminator at the end of the speech, like so:
"It's beautiful, isn't it?" Daniel said softly.
But you will note that there is still some form of terminator. The same pattern applies to exclamation marks. In these cases, if you are using 'said Daniel softly' the 'said' is not capitalised. Please remember this important fact. 'Said' never needs to be capitalised except in the way I have used it in this sentence.
A comma is also not required if the speech is a self-contained statement with no need for attribution or where the person who is speaking is made clear in another sentence. For example:
Sam grinned. "I can't sing either."
"You dance?"
"No."
Chichula laughed. "You dance. I show."
"No, no . . ."
7. Please put a question mark at the end of a direct question. There are no exceptions to this rule.
8. It is easy to make typos. I do it all the time; however, large numbers of typos should not appear in your finished scripts. If you are writing in Word with the squiggly lines turned on there is absolutely no excuse for the appearance of mangled words that don't appear in any dictionary. The squiggly lines are annoying sometimes and the dictionaries don't contain every word in existence, but if you have them turned on and check all words underlines in red (looking them up in an actual book dictionary if you think the word is spelled correctly) you will eliminate half the mistakes I see and make your beta's life much easier.
9. Please get a beta. They will be able to find all sorts of things in your manuscript before it gets out to the wider world. One of the important things they will find is where your typos have produced real words that were therefore not picked up by the squiggly lines, yet are still the wrong words. It should not be too difficult for a competent beta to remove all confusions of 'their', 'there' and 'they're' or 'suit' and 'suite' and you will have the undying gratitude of a lot of readers.
10. I've only seen it done a couple of times, but not splitting your text into paragraphs is abominable. Opening a fic to find an unbroken block of text is depressing and I always end up closing it without even attempting to read the first line. In a similar vein, the standard on the Internet is to have each paragraph separated by a blank line. This makes it easier to read on the screen. The paragraph tag in HTML takes care of it for you so there should be no excuse. Why, then, do I find 300KB fics written with no blank line separating the paragraphs? A simple link break works absolutely perfectly on a printed page of text, but unfortunately not everyone is going to print out your masterpiece. Please lay it out on the screen so that I can read it without going cross-eyed.
11. In that vein, please code your fics with re-sizable text. If you have simply coded it into HTML (or had a friend do it or a WYSIWIG editor or whatever) without any fancy fonts, it will appear on the screen at whatever size the reader's browser has been set to. I have mine set to 'Largest' because I get a headache reading pages of teeny text on my screen. I have no problem with your main indexes and so on being in 10pt Arial, but I'd like to be able to size your pages of fiction so that I can read them comfortably. If you're not sure how to do this, go to my feedback form on The Haven and email me - I'll be happy to walk you through it.
12. Some people print your fic out on paper to read at a later date or while they're on holiday. Sadly, if you've coded your fic to be at a particular screen width it may not be possible to print it. I've tried printing one author's work only to find that I was missing the last two words off each line because she'd set her fic inside a table that was just a little to wide for my page. Minimal formatting works best on the actual fic pages. If you must have fancy formatting, please provide a printer friendly page with simple formatting that will print correctly. If you want a good example of either of points 11 and 12 take a look at the sites in my links bar - the FDAS site even provides a 'print this page' button.
I can't tell you to avoid bad characterisation or poor plotting because a lot of that is in the eye of the beholder. You should write what you want to write and if that happens to be what I classify as drivel, so be it. But please could you read these points and at least ensure that your work is readable. I'm afraid that I, for one, will not be reading your fic if there are so many simple faults in it that I can't get beyond the first paragraph and I know that I am not alone in this.
Regards,
Selenay
Fanfic writer and reviewer.
Here endeth today's lesson.
