Fanfic Pet Peeves

[Skydiver]

i'd think so, especially compared to the guy i work with that doesn't even know what one it

[Seaboe Muffinchucker]

Akamaimom said: One of the other kids I teach once told me--"Hey, as long as people can understand it, does it matter how it's spelled?"

In the abstract, he's right. The purpose of language is communication, and if the communication is successful (i.e., people can understand it), that's all that matters.

In the context of writing anything, however, his statement has at least two flaws.

First of all, his underlying assumption is that people do understand. And if people fail to tell him differently, or his psyche won't let him accept criticism, he'll never get beyond this.

Second, he forgets that the purpose of story is to immerse the reader in the story world to such an extent that they accept it as real. Anything that pulls the reader out of that world is an automatic Fail. And when it grabs the reader by the collar and yanks them out so that they're left with whiplash, it's more than just a failure.

The author's goal should be to screen out anything that distracts the reader from the world they are trying to create. It is not the reader's job to ignore or work past the distractions.

Seaboe (sorry for the handmade quote; my home software doesn't like to quote posts)

[Celandine]

It's always good for a writer to keep yourself fresh on grammar as well. I'm good, but I'll never consider myself incapable of making a mistake. To do so would be terrible and give me a huge head to the point where when someone does concrit my fics, even if it's done in a nice way, I know I'll take offense. Having an abased attitude toward anything and everything is the only way to continue to grow and learn.

As to the 'generational' talk. I quite agree with everything said. Texting, gaming and the like has taken up many of the hours that could be spent reading...which is basically where I picked up the basics of good grammar through osmosis. When language classes began is school, everything taught made sense to me and finally had a name.

[Pitry]

"Practically everyone... in those days spoke correctly. But the lapse of time has certainly had a deteriorating effect in this respect".

Cicero. 1st century BC.

I remain unconvinced about the generational thing. Had it really been the case, considering it's been lamented for at least two thousand years, we would have been reduced to communicating with grunts by now.

[Akamaimom]

"Practically everyone... in those days spoke correctly. But the lapse of time has certainly had a deteriorating effect in this respect".

Cicero. 1st century BC.

I remain unconvinced about the generational thing. Had it really been the case, considering it's been lamented for at least two thousand years, we would have been reduced to communicating with grunts by now.

Language naturally changes and morphs--but normally, in the mean time, educated people have stuck to some semblance of consistency.

I think that the ready availability of communication, and the speed with which things can be communicated, has harmed the basic understand that some people have of the art form of language.

That, and teachers aren't allowed to fail kids anymore when they can't read in the tenth grade. It's ridiculous.

[Aragon101]

I think language will always evolve in dialects even if the 'core' language remains relatively unchanged.

What i mean by that is that even if 'formal' English remains more or less the same with teh addition or deletion of a few words/phrases, the dialects will definitely have a major change.

Take the texting language. it evolved because typing 90wpm on a cell phone is NOT easy the language evolved out of necessity, and sadly some people know that better than formal English.

Personally i detest txt speak. especially when you have a damned keyboard available. but it's still a dialect in its own right, just a written dialect. It's like my brother saying i'm speaking crazy talk when i use a phrase like "Taking the piss out of". Mind you, i live in Canada and Britishisms have gotten into my everyday speak. It's still English, but he doesn't understand me.

I think someone who's serious about becoming an author/writer will take the time to learn how to use the language effectively and correctly. If someone's not willing to do that, well then i'm not really willing to read their stuff then if they want 'acclaim'

that's another thing, the 'acclaim' that comes with numbers of reviews and hits can seriously go to a person's head. Suddenly because you have an audience, you've become the next Stephen King or Nora Roberts.

I think it's almost obvious to tell which writers seek to improve and which ones don't. If i see attempts at correct grammar, i'll think to myself "hmm... they're trying."

If i see no attempt whatsoever, there's that lovely little X in the corner or the 'back' button

[Pitry]

Language naturally changes and morphs--but normally, in the mean time, educated people have stuck to some semblance of consistency.

I think language will always evolve in dialects even if the 'core' language remains relatively unchanged.

False. It's true in the sense that written language is always 'behind'. That is, it only starts being written down after it's been widely accepted. But open a modern book and compare it to Charles Dickens, not even to Shakespeare, and you'll already see the difference. Some words are spelt differently, some expressions and/or words are no longer in use, some grammatical forms or sentence patterns are completely different.
The difference isn't about 'core' language, and it most certainly isn't about education, and I'm sorry but I think that as soon as you throw in the bit about education you're showing your own bias on the subject. It's about canonisation.
The English language - thank God - doesn't have an official body to determine what is 'correct' and what isn't. So when something has become consensus and accepted by the majority of people, you'll see it more and more in print. That's the canonisation process. That's why written language is always behind. It has absolutely nothing to do with education.

I think that the ready availability of communication, and the speed with which things can be communicated, has harmed the basic understand that some people have of the art form of language.

And I'm 100% sure that when they started printing books for mess media consumption there were people who said the exact same thing.

That, and teachers aren't allowed to fail kids anymore when they can't read in the tenth grade. It's ridiculous.

Or, accepting responsibility. I'm sorry, but if a 16 year old kid doesn't know how to read properly, the blame isn't on the kid, it's on his teachers in the past 10 years.

What i mean by that is that even if 'formal' English remains more or less the same with teh addition or deletion of a few words/phrases, the dialects will definitely have a major change.

'Formal' English doesn't exist. It's all dialects.

Take the texting language. it evolved because typing 90wpm on a cell phone is NOT easy the language evolved out of necessity, and sadly some people know that better than formal English.

*calls bull***** It's a nice soundbyte but it won't stand to the test.

Personally i detest txt speak. especially when you have a damned keyboard available. but it's still a dialect in its own right, just a written dialect. It's like my brother saying i'm speaking crazy talk when i use a phrase like "Taking the piss out of". Mind you, i live in Canada and Britishisms have gotten into my everyday speak. It's still English, but he doesn't understand me.

Eh. (no Canadian pun intended ) You're talking about ideolect here, not dialect. And 'written dialect' is problematic as hell.

I think someone who's serious about becoming an author/writer will take the time to learn how to use the language effectively and correctly. If someone's not willing to do that, well then i'm not really willing to read their stuff then if they want 'acclaim'

I agree about the first one. 'Effectively' is definitely very important. But I think you will find that many people who write in 'spoken language' are writing correctly. Just not according to some norm that suggests that written language should be of a higher register than spoken one. I've seen a pretty fantastic book (unfortunately in Hebrew, so I can;t recommend) that becomes all the more powerful BECAUSE it's written in spoken language, and utilises the spoken language to give a very powerful message. A message that would be impossible to give had it been written in the 'formal' 'correct' language.

that's another thing, the 'acclaim' that comes with numbers of reviews and hits can seriously go to a person's head. Suddenly because you have an audience, you've become the next Stephen King or Nora Roberts.

That's something else, and I agree that reviews ≠ quality.

I think it's almost obvious to tell which writers seek to improve and which ones don't. If i see attempts at correct grammar, i'll think to myself "hmm... they're trying."

If i see no attempt whatsoever, there's that lovely little X in the corner or the 'back' button

You're free to decide that if a story has 50% of the sentences ending in a preposition, you don't want to rid it. But personally I'm much more likely to stop reading if the story has characterisations I disagree with or plays the "rape is love" trope or something similar.
Sorry to bring up an older post but I think - other than the linguistic conservatism being displayed here - what pissed me off mostly in this discussion was SBZ's comment (sorry, mate) that automatically equated bad spelling/grammar as "bad fic". Really? REALLY? A person mixing their its and it's and writing 'through' instead of 'threw' a couple of times is enough for you to declare the fic 'bad'? Because this is the kind of mistakes people are talking about, isn't it? No one in their right mind is going to write "Today Jack are go with walk'. That's bad grammar. Writing 'there eyes' isn't, it's just a silly mistake and usually the fics that show these problems repeatedly have much more serious problems in either style, characterisations, or plot. So yeah, a lot of fics with 'bad grammar' actually ARE bad, but not because of the grammar and spelling. Simply because the people who wrote them don't really know that stringing two sentences together still doesn't make you a writer.

Sorry for the rant.

[Aragon101]

False. It's true in the sense that written language is always 'behind'. That is, it only starts being written down after it's been widely accepted. But open a modern book and compare it to Charles Dickens, not even to Shakespeare, and you'll already see the difference. Some words are spelt differently, some expressions and/or words are no longer in use, some grammatical forms or sentence patterns are completely different.
The difference isn't about 'core' language, and it most certainly isn't about education, and I'm sorry but I think that as soon as you throw in the bit about education you're showing your own bias on the subject. It's about canonisation.
The English language - thank God - doesn't have an official body to determine what is 'correct' and what isn't. So when something has become consensus and accepted by the majority of people, you'll see it more and more in print. That's the canonisation process. That's why written language is always behind. It has absolutely nothing to do with education.



And I'm 100% sure that when they started printing books for mess media consumption there were people who said the exact same thing.


Or, accepting responsibility. I'm sorry, but if a 16 year old kid doesn't know how to read properly, the blame isn't on the kid, it's on his teachers in the past 10 years.



'Formal' English doesn't exist. It's all dialects.



*calls bull***** It's a nice soundbyte but it won't stand to the test.



Eh. (no Canadian pun intended ) You're talking about ideolect here, not dialect. And 'written dialect' is problematic as hell.



I agree about the first one. 'Effectively' is definitely very important. But I think you will find that many people who write in 'spoken language' are writing correctly. Just not according to some norm that suggests that written language should be of a higher register than spoken one. I've seen a pretty fantastic book (unfortunately in Hebrew, so I can;t recommend) that becomes all the more powerful BECAUSE it's written in spoken language, and utilises the spoken language to give a very powerful message. A message that would be impossible to give had it been written in the 'formal' 'correct' language.



That's something else, and I agree that reviews ≠ quality.



You're free to decide that if a story has 50% of the sentences ending in a preposition, you don't want to rid it. But personally I'm much more likely to stop reading if the story has characterisations I disagree with or plays the "rape is love" trope or something similar.
Sorry to bring up an older post but I think - other than the linguistic conservatism being displayed here - what pissed me off mostly in this discussion was SBZ's comment (sorry, mate) that automatically equated bad spelling/grammar as "bad fic". Really? REALLY? A person mixing their its and it's and writing 'through' instead of 'threw' a couple of times is enough for you to declare the fic 'bad'? Because this is the kind of mistakes people are talking about, isn't it? No one in their right mind is going to write "Today Jack are go with walk'. That's bad grammar. Writing 'there eyes' isn't, it's just a silly mistake and usually the fics that show these problems repeatedly have much more serious problems in either style, characterisations, or plot. So yeah, a lot of fics with 'bad grammar' actually ARE bad, but not because of the grammar and spelling. Simply because the people who wrote them don't really know that stringing two sentences together still doesn't make you a writer.

Sorry for the rant.

Nah no worries. Personally my eyes glaze over if i can't understand something.

There's a far and away difference from people who who try and people who don't care. We've discussed characterization before, it's very important.

But if i start reading something that while it had good characterization, but the grammar is so confusing that it takes forever to read, i can't get into it in teh same way.

Typos and little slips are forgivable. alot of fic writers are like this, the kind who while not writing PHDs, they try and tell their story with good technical ability.

But when yo uget fics that look like this then of cours no mater how gud the idea iz i cant read it.

That's what i mean by can tell if they're trying or not. I'm not trying to offend or pass myself off as an educated person in the written language (which i'm not, most of my ability is through osmosis and practice).

I've stated it many times, my grammar is atrocious, so i've spent what? the last year learning how to do it right?

I think the term 'writer' is a bit general too. I hit a baseball with a bat but i'm no baseball player even if i do play every so often. I personally think if one wants to call oneself by a title like that, they should be able to back it up and show improvement.

As far as language, i was agreeing with Akamai but in my own less edumacated words i didn't see her post until after i posted

[puddlejumperOZ]

"Practically everyone... in those days spoke correctly. But the lapse of time has certainly had a deteriorating effect in this respect".

Cicero. 1st century BC.

I remain unconvinced about the generational thing. Had it really been the case, considering it's been lamented for at least two thousand years, we would have been reduced to communicating with grunts by now.

In fact a lot of that is happening today, have you ever witnessed a footballer (not FOOTballer's but League, Union and NFL) players being interviewed, or boxers?

TV host Bart "So Jim how did the game go today?"

Jim "Grth Brth, w' smishd em god"

Bart "I see, and how is your arm now?"

Jim "Arg, grunt...ith god sorda, me missus gibs mi a rubbn ever no n' thn...uh,eh"

[Akamaimom]

But open a modern book and compare it to Charles Dickens, not even to Shakespeare, and you'll already see the difference. Some words are spelt differently, some expressions and/or words are no longer in use, some grammatical forms or sentence patterns are completely different.

That's where I think your theory falls apart. You're talking hundreds of years between changes (Chaucer to Shakespeare to Dickens to today--big changes there, but it's been what--700 years?). This failure I've been seeing lately has been happening for only a few dozen.

And we could debate this until the cows come home, but I have the feeling that neither of us are going to give in. All I will say is that I grew up in Academia, with English teachers all around me. I have a few degrees in the subject, myself, and my mother has five. And I do speak another language as well. My opinion is that language doesn't morph this fast on its own. It's being helped along by certain outside forces. Among them, a disinterest on the part of the educational systems and on the part of students to learn the basics, because they aren't being required to.

And of course language is going to change, but at this point, it's doing so due to gross neglect rather than due to any major natural ebb and flow. Once a language becomes a free-for-all where anything goes, it ceases to be a language because no one can understand it.

And with that, I'm done.

[Skydiver]

i too detest text speak...and honestly, is U faster to type that You?

it does have its place. and i've been known to send a c u tomorrow text...but it had NO PLACE AT ALL in fic. Unless you're writing a text that's in a fic.

use text speak to text, use something resembling proper english to write a fic (or the language of your choice)

[Aragon101]

I'd green you Aka but i need to spread more around Same with you Sky except... well the Green went through

Even in the last 15 years. The language has changed so much due to texting becoming hte new 'in thing' along with IM programs. When was the last time you saw proper punctuation in an IM program or txt?

I think someone who calls themselves a 'writer' as in someone who writes a story for their audience should seek to write it with the fewest 'mistakes' as possible because Art is art, but there's a fine line between a person who writes something because they want to tell a story because they had an idea, or a person who writes because they have an idea for a story and they want to tell it well without running into glaring issues like thie hugely massive sentence you've just read and i wrote on purpose.

An overlong sentence here and there is forgivable. paragraphs worth of it turn me off instantaneously because I'm not getting into the 'flow' of the story. Alot of these little problems are forgivable to me if the idea's good and there seems to be honest attempt to write something 'good'.

I mean come on. We've ALL read books in school. You'd have to be an extremely special case to have gotten through school without reading a book. If you haven't learned enough about writing by reading, then i'm just not sure why I should take extra time deciphering what you're trying to say even if it's a great idea. That's something i think gets forgotten, good writers tend to be good readers as well (at least as far as i've noticed).

[slurredspeech]

False. It's true in the sense that written language is always 'behind'. That is, it only starts being written down after it's been widely accepted. But open a modern book and compare it to Charles Dickens, not even to Shakespeare, and you'll already see the difference. Some words are spelt differently, some expressions and/or words are no longer in use, some grammatical forms or sentence patterns are completely different.

The English language - thank God - doesn't have an official body to determine what is 'correct' and what isn't. So when something has become consensus and accepted by the majority of people, you'll see it more and more in print. That's the canonisation process.

There's a difference between the example you cite and bad grammar or spelling or - ugh - text speak and its forms. I very much doubt - no matter how much language will yet evolve or standards of writing change - that we will ever find books with sentences like,

"Jack n Danny r on ths planet alone w/o Sam n Teal'c bcoz d other 2 had 2 help Gen H w sum matters on Earth." ,

and pick up a book by Stephen King and reminisce with nostalgia.

Or, accepting responsibility. I'm sorry, but if a 16 year old kid doesn't know how to read properly, the blame isn't on the kid, it's on his teachers in the past 10 years.

I don't know. The way the teachers' hands are tied these days, with protective or entitled - even delusional - parents, and the regulations there are about failing students... *shakes head* It's all nuts. So of course that a kid, very well aware they can pass the class while meeting minimal requirements and with barely any knowledge at all, will take advantage of this. No teacher - even the best one - can make a kid listen to what they are saying, let alone to make an effort at home, if that kid categorically refuses.

Sanctions are a wonderful thing, and failing students who don't meet the requirements is just as important as rewarding those who actually try, especially if it's with stellar results. Anything else is both extremely unfair and, in the long run, counterproductive.

When was the last time you saw proper punctuation in an IM program or txt?

*raises hand tentatively*

I do it. Like Sky said about 'u' and 'you'. It's a dot, a question mark, an exclamation mark; how much additional time or effort goes into it really.

[sbz]

Sorry to bring up an older post but I think - other than the linguistic conservatism being displayed here - what pissed me off mostly in this discussion was SBZ's comment (sorry, mate) that automatically equated bad spelling/grammar as "bad fic". Really? REALLY? A person mixing their its and it's and writing 'through' instead of 'threw' a couple of times is enough for you to declare the fic 'bad'? Because this is the kind of mistakes people are talking about, isn't it? No one in their right mind is going to write "Today Jack are go with walk'. That's bad grammar. Writing 'there eyes' isn't, it's just a silly mistake and usually the fics that show these problems repeatedly have much more serious problems in either style, characterisations, or plot. So yeah, a lot of fics with 'bad grammar' actually ARE bad, but not because of the grammar and spelling. Simply because the people who wrote them don't really know that stringing two sentences together still doesn't make you a writer.

Um, no, that's not what I said.

I said:

"Personally, someone who's loose with the rules is not a person that I would consider a writer. If you're going to write and you're serious about it then you have to care about conventions and rules."

Which was in response to Aka about text speak and net speak and that it sneaks into writing where it has no place. If you're going to write for other people, you need to follow the rules of grammar, mechanics, and spelling. Because your goal, regardless of what you're writing, is to be understood. And the more you break, ignore, or bend those rules, the greater the number of people who won't understand you.

And I said:
"Yes, fanfic should be of good quality. Any writer worth their salt will want everything they write to meet a certain standard. But perfect isn't reasonable because even published works, whether they be novels, textbooks, or articles, aren't perfect.

The odd error here and there, the ones that are typos rather than outright mistakes, I forgive. No one's infallible. But if I get the feeling that the writer doesn't give a damn, then there's no reason I should care. So I won't read and won't concrit because I'm wasting my time. "

So, as you can see, the odd error of its/it's is not something that makes me declare a fic as bad. It's when it's rampant to the point I have to read sentences multiple times to understand what's going on that I declare it "bad." If I can't understand the story, then the writer has fundamentally failed.

And one final note. My criteria for what makes a fic "bad" are my own, and they're no less legitimate or right than your criteria. You think characterization is the most important, fine. I think getting the technical details right is vital.

[Skydiver]

for me, to call a fic 'bad'

blatant and persistent misspellings - kernal, crater, danyel, etc
bad characterizations - jack singing, sam weeping, daniel crying, jack hurting any member of his team
outrageous plot - a sgc talent night, jack's long lost sister, sam's long lost sister, daniel's long lost sister, off spring of any of the above joining the sgc

and other smaller issues, but any or all of the above, get a fic a free trip to my recycle bin