Stuff you find disheartening about fan-fiction

Where stuff about fanfiction that doesn't fit into any other category goes. Including Polls, RPGs & Multiple Author Works

Try to make sure that new topics here actually couldn't actually go somewhere else.

Re: Stuff you find disheartening about fan-fiction

Postby Spica75 » Mon Aug 07, 2017 5:19 am

The word processor is the villain in much of this.


One horribly common horror that i absolutely loathe by the way, words that are supposed to be SINGLE words, and both people and especially spellcheckers and crap, cut them into two.
Like the fic i was just reading, graveyard spelled as grave yard. Hallway as hall way. Backup as back up(*cringe*). And so on...
It's a total plague, coming over the last 20 years.
Spica75
User avatar
Prism Power Senshi
Posts: 2399
 

Re: Stuff you find disheartening about fan-fiction

Postby Té Rowan » Mon Aug 07, 2017 8:34 am

Spica75 wrote:It's a total plague, coming over the last 20 years.

And especially bad when it changes the meaning. After all, a graveyard isn’t always grave. Especially not up here come Yule. They tend to look quite gay, then, all decked out in lights.
I go walking. My mind goes wandering.
Té Rowan
User avatar
Prism Power Senshi
Posts: 3015
 

Re: Stuff you find disheartening about fan-fiction

Postby Ellen Kuhfeld » Mon Aug 07, 2017 10:48 am

Spica75 wrote:One horribly common horror that i absolutely loathe by the way, words that are supposed to be SINGLE words, and both people and especially spellcheckers and crap, cut them into two.
Like the fic i was just reading, graveyard spelled as grave yard. Hallway as hall way. Backup as back up(*cringe*). And so on...
It's a total plague, coming over the last 20 years.

Fortunately, my spell-checker (yet another way to do it!) lets me add words to special dictionaries. I do. Graveyard becomes perfectly acceptable after that. But I never, ever, let hyphenation loose on a document.

Spell-check.jpg
About that spell checker you sold me ...
Visit Big Washuu's Lab of Arcane Knowledge at http://washuu.net
Ellen Kuhfeld
User avatar
Sailor Starlight
Posts: 2228
 

Re: Stuff you find disheartening about fan-fiction

Postby Makoto » Tue Aug 08, 2017 4:55 am

Spica75 wrote:"The" in front of names, if i've understood it correctly, that's apparently influence from a few other languages, somehow infecting English with extra weird.


So, SOOO many massacred words...


Wanna know something horrible? A terrifyingly large portion of all that crap is due to spellcheckers and automatic grammar "corrections". I think it may be the 2nd largest reason for "the" in front of names as well, as several times now that i have commented about that, the author replied something like "but my writer app changed it that way so it must be correct!".


On the occasions when I've seen that, I've also wondered if some of it was the result of the author writing the story/chapter, then running a global search and replace ("the youngest Tendo sister" > "the Akane," for example), and not bothering to proofread the results afterward.
Still alive, but failing miserably at dodging Real Life.
My webpage has returned! http://www.fdnest.com/~makoto/
My Fanfiction.net profile: https://www.fanfiction.net/u/1473284/
Makoto
User avatar
Asteroid Senshi
Posts: 862
 

Re: Stuff you find disheartening about fan-fiction

Postby Spica75 » Tue Aug 08, 2017 2:54 pm

Read a story today that reminded me of another horribly common fail.
Definitely is not spelled "defiantly"... It's amazing how often that appears.


On the occasions when I've seen that, I've also wondered if some of it was the result of the author writing the story/chapter, then running a global search and replace ("the youngest Tendo sister" > "the Akane," for example), and not bothering to proofread the results afterward.


Huh, interesting idea. Never heard of anyone writing like that, but it wouldn't surprise me.
Spica75
User avatar
Prism Power Senshi
Posts: 2399
 

Re: Stuff you find disheartening about fan-fiction

Postby Ellen Kuhfeld » Tue Aug 08, 2017 3:31 pm

Makoto wrote:On the occasions when I've seen that, I've also wondered if some of it was the result of the author writing the story/chapter, then running a global search and replace ("the youngest Tendo sister" > "the Akane," for example), and not bothering to proofread the results afterward.

I know a professional author that happened to. She was calling one of her characters a "chunk". She decided "heavy-set man" was better, and did a global search and replace. Which worked just as she expected it, except for "the car door closed with a heavy-set man". Fortunately, it was caught before it went off to the publisher.
Visit Big Washuu's Lab of Arcane Knowledge at http://washuu.net
Ellen Kuhfeld
User avatar
Sailor Starlight
Posts: 2228
 

Re: Stuff you find disheartening about fan-fiction

Postby Té Rowan » Wed Aug 09, 2017 6:18 am

All these cases of ‘search and destroy’ and ‘automatic spelling wreckers’ I have seen… The former has happened to me way too often while editing stuff for the Hidden Library. Not the latter, though, as I do not use ‘auto-car race’.
I go walking. My mind goes wandering.
Té Rowan
User avatar
Prism Power Senshi
Posts: 3015
 

Re: Stuff you find disheartening about fan-fiction

Postby Crescent Pulsar S » Fri Aug 11, 2017 2:43 pm

Throughout all my years of writing, I never once considered using anything that would auto-anything for me. Even when I got into things like HTML and other languages, I made a point of doing things manually. I wonder why so many people end up with the mindset to rely on something else to do the work for them. I mean, I can guess several reasons why, but not the willingness to do so.

Spica75 wrote:Read a story today that reminded me of another horribly common fail.
Definitely is not spelled "defiantly"... It's amazing how often that appears.

Yeah, it really is amazing. It makes me wonder how/why it happens so often.

I also see taunt instead of taut a lot, too.

Or peak instead of pique, but homonyms are at least understandable.
Crescent Pulsar S
User avatar
Cosmic Power Senshi
Posts: 6406
 

Re: Stuff you find disheartening about fan-fiction

Postby Té Rowan » Sun Aug 13, 2017 8:09 am

Yeah, homonym abuse is bloody annoying, but at least I can fix it in those fics I decide to ‘ninja-archive’.
I go walking. My mind goes wandering.
Té Rowan
User avatar
Prism Power Senshi
Posts: 3015
 

Previous

Return to Miscellaneous, Polls, RPGs

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users