Spelling Counts!

It wuz a boring day at NCIS headquarters. Specail Agent Anthony DiNozzo wuz dealing with it by being more annoying than usual. He kept throughing little pieces of paper at his partner Ziva David, then looking away when she terned to glare at him. "Tony, if you do that one more time, I swear I am going to shoot you" "But, Zee-vaa," Tony whined, streching out Ziva's name to annoy her "Its boring here". "Tony, this may be a wierd concept for u to get, but no one cares" snapped Gibbs. "What?" sed Tony "He's saying your arrogant, Tony" put in Timothy McGee.

So what was the point of that, you ask? To illustrate the spelling errors I frequently see when reading fan fiction. And just saying in the author's note "Oh Im a horrible speller, dont get made at me, but enjoy my story neway!" isn't an excuse (FYI: The spelling errors were put there deliberately to further prove my point). Most word-processing software comes with this handy little button called the spell-checker. They put it in for a reason; use it, please! Don't have a word processing program? Well, it's your lucky day! On the home page of fanfiction.net, there are links to download free word-processing programs. Also, there's a spell checker built right into the document manager where you upload your stories. You're using it anyway, so you might as well use that spell checker.

I have one tip that might help you with those pesky contractions that was drilled into me in school and a lot of people don't know it. Contractions stand for something, like "you're" stands for "you are", "that's" stands for "that is", "it's" stands for "it is" and so on. If you're confused as to which to use, then think if the long form of the contraction will make sense in your sentence. If it does, then use the contraction, if not, don't. So to use my example at the top, McGee is telling DiNozzo that he is arrogant. So which one is correct, "You're" or "your"? "You are arrogant, Tony" fits the sentence better than the "Your arrogant, Tony" that I purposely used. "Your" means possession, like if I was referring to "your" mitten. The mitten belongs to you. As an additional note, do NOT under ANY circumstances use chat speak in a story. Like how I used "wuz" instead of "was" in my example. Not to sound rude, but if you can't take the time to put in the effort to spell everything out in non-chat speak words, then why are you bothering putting the time into writing a story? This, even more so then spelling errors, makes you look dumb and most of all, lazy. There is a place for chat speak and this is not it.

Admittedly, I'm a bit of a spelling Nazi, but it's honestly hard to enjoy a story with so many spelling errors. For one thing, it communicates to the reader that you, as the writer, are not that intelligent and they don't take you seriously as a result. They won't read any of your stories and isn't that why you posted them in the first place? Secondly, it's hard to understand what you're trying to say if there are so many spelling errors. Thirdly, and most importantly in my opinion, it ruins the story. I've seen so many stories that seem like they're going to have a great plot, yet there are so many spelling errors, I can't get into them.

Contrary to popular belief, spelling does count. You may not lose points in a grade, but you'll lose readers if you post stories with sloppy spelling. Anything that has the primary purpose of being read by the public take the time to spell everything right and not in chat speak; you wouldn't read them otherwise. The same thing applies for fan fiction. A couple of spelling errors, fine, nobody's perfect, but a whole chapter full of spelling errors and chat speak is inexcusable. Here's a link to a list of some Common Spelling Mistakes. Your story has the potential for greatness and if you just remember the tips I gave you here, you'll turn your adequate, misspelled story into a great one in no time! It make take a few extra minutes to click that little check mark, but if you really and truly care about your story and what people will think of it, then those few extra minutes will be nothing.