HOW TO WRITE A FANFIC

People! This will NOT be a fanfic but more like a guide/manual to help poor writers to write better their fanfictions.

I'm not saying I'm the best! Far from it, but I try my best to write correctly so, when I read my own fic I don't think: "Man! Did I really wrote such a crappy, shitty fanfic?!"

Grammar

1- Grammar and words!

First thing first.

How many time I have read: "You was my best friend!" Seriously?! You was?! Where those people learned English? A cereal box?!

Before you write in any language, make sure you know how to write correctly! I'm French, and I waited years before starting to write in English! To be sure that my language skill was good enough so people wouldn't think: "Is this guy even human?!" I admit, even now, I make mistakes but I try to write my fanfiction correctly.

So, check your grammar and be sure that you write it nice and clean.

Also, I often saw "here" that should have been "her" or "were" instead of "where". I understand, it can happen to anyone. But it's not normal to find it 5 times or more in a single chapter! And this leads me to the second part…

2- Rereading!

It's something you MUST NOT ignore when you write! I repeat: DO NOT IGNORE! Once you're done writing your chapter/fanfiction, read it again and check for any error. Everybody do error, we're human, we are allowed to make errors but we must try and do better and correct those!

Check it once on whatever program you use to write (I use Microsoft Word), then check it again once you put it on the website! You never know if it was copied right or not.
Moreover, if you do use Microsoft Words, then you should be notified if you do an error or if you wrote something wrong... It always help so don't ignore or delete those little red and green lines.

3- Punctuation…

As many of you know, there are several things you put in a fanfic, things known as "punctuation". It includes: [. , … ; - " " ' ! ? / : * ] And maybe more but my keyboard doesn't have them, but those are the main ones, those you use every day.

It's important to know where you put those in your sentences.

Ex 1: He was, going to lead them to, victory like he promised. X
Ex 2: He was going to lead them to victory, like he promised. O
Ex 3: He was going to lead them to victory like he promised. O

Now, as you can see, there are two right sentences (O) and one wrong (X).
The Ex 1, if you can't understand why it's wrong, go back to school!
For the two correct ones, the coma only change little. In Ex 2, the coma give the impression that A speak about B leading them to victory; in Ex 3, it sounds more like B is talking about himself.

Now, the use of "…" to start and end a sentence: I often saw fanfictions where it was either misplaced, or even completely absent.
It is true that it's not the only way to start a sentence, some people use [-] or [ —] to start one. But if you don't show the start and the end of the sentence, people can get confused or annoyed (like me).

Ex 1: "I really wanted to buy that bag. said the young girl. X
Ex 2: "I really wanted to buy that bag." said the young girl. O
Ex 3: — I really wanted to buy that bag, said the young girl. O

Now, like you can guess, using [—] can be a little tricky but you can clearly see how annoying it is to forget ["…"] in Ex 1. I know it looks like it's nothing but it's annoying if you keep forgetting to separate dialog and text.

Well, this was just the first part. I'll post the other later. I hope I don't sound arrogant and that this can help people. And, yes, it's short. It's a guide, not a fanfiction. Deal with it!