(no subject)

[penfold_x]

It's canon, not cannon. For the love.

If your summary is riddled with spelling errors, it's like a big flashing sign that says "Never read me! Guaranteed to suck!"

Comments

[author-by-night.livejournal.com]

No offense, but isn't that a little harsh? Not everyone's been in fandom for a long time.

[masteralida.livejournal.com]

Why is that harsh? Canon isn't just a fandom term and correct spelling certainly isn't indicative of one's experience in fandom. I know people who have been in this for a very long time who can't spell worth beans and seem to have an aversion to even using spell check, as pitiful as that is.

[author-by-night.livejournal.com]

I think the literary term "canon" means something a little different... but good point.

[ginnytonnick.livejournal.com]

If you want people to read something you've wrote, you have to not just make it stand out from the fanfic that came before it (with good plot, characterization, and storytelling) you need to make it accessible. That means not putting it behind a lock and forcing readers to jump through hoops, formatting the story with line breaks and good grammer, and using a spell check.

With big archives like fanfiction.net, where there's hundreds if not thousands of stories, readers naturally use filters. Pairing listed they don't like - skip. No pairing listed? Skip because there's always a pairing they like listed somewhere. Bad spelling? Skip. There's always someone that uses spell check.

See, it's not anything personal or who is in fandom more. It's supply and demand. People demand quality fic presented at their feet all tidy and neat. If you want to be the supplier, then you need to figure out what your audience needs. Otherwise, there's always someone else.