Wow, I kind of dropped off the face of the Earth, there, didn't I? Whoops.

GRAMMAR, PEOPLE!

Okay, here's the thing. This is fanfiction. It's not super serious, it's just for fun, right?

That DOES NOT mean that you don't get to care about it. If your story is on this website, it's usually because you want people to see it, enjoy it, etc. etc.

So why would you not just capitalize that one i in your summary? Or add a period to the end of the sentence at the beginning of your chapter?

IT'S NOT THAT HARD, GUYS.

1. It's off-putting

Say you're reading a story, right? It's got an interesting premise, some nice character building, just overall good story elements. Now imagine that the writer of said story can't decide if they want to use past or present third-person perspective. Here's an example.

Percy just can't take it. He couldn't believe what he was hearing. He puts a hand over his mouth as he grinned. He watched Zeus get the talking-to of his godly life and can't help laughing.

Does anybody else see this? It drives me just the slightest bit insane, if you couldn't tell.

2. In the summary, too?

Has anyone ever read a summary just CHOCK-FULL of uncapitalized i's, and sentence fragments, and missing commas, and AAAAAAHHHHHH.

(That was me screaming.)

It's not exactly something that makes me want to read your story.

3. It's so simple to fix

All you have to do to fix most grammatical issues is EDIT.

ed-it

/ˈedət/

prepare (written material) for publication by correcting, condensing, or otherwise modifying it.

Even just going through the chapter or summary ONE TIME makes a big difference. I find it especially helpful to wait a day or two, then go back to it. I guess part of it could be that a lot of new writers just want to get their work out there now, and in the moment. I won't lie, I've done that a time or two. But it always ended up with me reading my work and finding at least 17 errors right off the bat. Very annoying to have to update the story once it's already out there.

4. When in doubt, use Grammarly

It's super easy, and free. It finds basic grammatical and spelling errors for you, I use it when I'm super tired and can't see mistakes as easily.

5. BETA-READERS, HELLO?

They do exist, guys. Just go to the 'betas' tab at the top left of your screen, and you'll figure it out from there. Or, if you're reading this, I'll do it for you! (I am a licensed beta-reader.) Just PM me.

ANYWAY to sum it up, no one really likes stories with grammar error after grammar error. (Unless that's just me... in which case, pay no attention to anything I just said.)

Um... so yeah. I was gone for a while, huh? Basically, I was super busy. Sorry!

Peace out,

LadyHW