I have seriously had it up to this point. I'm currently reading a fic, a good one in my personal opinion, but i won't mention here as its title is not relevant. What is relevant is the spelling of "Dolores" Umbridge. I have seen hundreds of fics in which her name is incorrectly spelled as "Delores". I know we all hate the fifth book, but at least have the respect to correctly spell her friggin name. I seen plenty of fics from authors on here that have misspelled her name as well, so don't go thinking you're superior to fanfiction.nazis or portkey.org or fictionalley or whatever.

..

Rant over. v_v

EDIT: Meant the fanfiction community, not the fics themselves =/

 

Because HP fanfic makes up most of the fanfic on the web. More people delve into it than other fandoms, meaning more people who shouldn't be writing are writing.

Most of these people are too young to have developed any sense of writing style, and usually haven't taken enough English classes to have all their faults corrected.

This would be forgiveable if they used betas, but for some reason, they don't.

I've only encountered two or three sites with high standards, Online Wizarding Library and PhoenixSong, but these don't really have fics to DLP's liking.

So...sorry, but you'll just have to suffer with the rest of us. I've found that yelling at authors to get a beta just earns me a nasty reply back or no reply at all.

And are we quite sure that the fic is illiterate?

 

They can spell everyone else's names correctly, but they cannot spell Dolores right?

 

I guess not.

 

Ummm.... nice rant? I agree with you on that fact that misspelling names is annoying, but Dolores Umbridge really isn't that big of a deal. I mean Dumledore or MacGonagell or Harrie Pooter destroy a fanfiction, but Dolores Umbridge being spelled with an 'e' put you over the edge. Calm down, man.

As to my superiority complex, I say it is clearly justified. Yes, some people don't have the books and spell the names of Dolores Umbridge wrong -I myself thinking it was Delores for a while which just sounds better- but we are better then fanfictionnet-nazis and people from mugglenet for the singular reason that we dont allow crap stories or crap people on this site. If you are a complete idiot -much like xcel- then you don't deserve to be here and if you write like a complete idiot -much like xcel- you don't deserve to be here. End of story.

Honestly, please give me a link to one of your stories so I can see how you write and, if you don't write, don't bash others for messing up something as stupid as Umbridge's name and comparing us to the nazis for the stories we have here are a hundred times better written then 99/100 stories on any of those sites you listed. It's a bit pointless and utterly stupid.

 

I did not compare you, i merely pointed out that DLP authors weren't superior in this one regard.

 

Ah, then I misinterpreted, my bad. I have to agree, then.

 

Righto. No hard feelings

 

Honestly, the things I tend to get the most annoyed about in fan fiction are really simple mistakes for the most part; incorrect There and Too words, for instance.

Though, I have to say, it does baffle me that some people seem to think that the word "Women" is the singular form. I mean, what the hell? Why would someone think that makes sense, especially if they don't make the same mistake with "Men"?

 

The bad spelling of canon names is stupid, but only one of the problems with HP fanfiction illiteracy.

You have to understand that most people who write on the other sites are twelve year olds like I was when I started writing. It makes a big difference in your style and you haven't got to the level of schooling when they teach you about things you need to know to write a good story. It's kids telling other kids they are good writers, but in truth they use hundreds of cliches, have no real plot, have all their sex scenes with simultaneous orgasms because they've never had sex, and the spelling and grammar is off in general -not to mention canon spells and names being wrong.

 

Delores may annoy me, but what urks me like no other is when folks spell Lily as "Lilly."

 

is this thread turning into the "10 things i hate about HP fanfiction illiteracy" ?

 

Bad grammar and spelling is only one of the problems plaguing fanfiction nowadays. While I will grudgingly read a story with grammatical errors if it has a good plot, I won't read a well-written story that has a boring plot. That doesn't happen too often, though. Most stories are a combination of the two problems.

 

Canon misspelling does't mean illiteracy, we are talkig about the true idiots out in fandom.

 

The only time I came close to that was one time when I mistyped Quirrell's name as "Quinius" instead of "Quirinus". When I found out it was already posted. I suppose I'll do a major edit and I'll correct it among other things...

Too true

 

For someone complaining about illiteracy, your posts seem to be rather lacking in capitalisation.

And since when do we not like OotP? I was under the impression that most people in the fan fiction community considered OotP to be a gift, in that it had such an open-ended ending.

 

...

What?

Actually MNFF and FA both have very strict policies about canon spellings. I once got one of my chapters rejected on FA for misspelling 'Furnunculus'. Got it confused with the French translation, which is 'Furunculus'. That's right. One 'n'.

As for MNFF, its standards in grammar and spelling are rather high -- that's because of them that I became an obsessional grammar-whore -- which at least enables the readers not to lose IQ points over massacres of the English language. Another good thing about their archive is that the stories are strictly categorised ("slash" has its own category), making it easier to avoid the genres you don't like. For an archive designed to host all types of fictions, it's actually not that bad.

However, you just need to take a look at the "ten most favorited stories" to understand what exactly is wrong with the MNFF readers. The fangirls all seem attracted to the site like vermin to a carrion. Well at least they have to learn English before they can write, which is admittedly not so great a consolation...

Last... Delores, Lilly, Occulmency and the likes all annoy me; but not as much as manslut!James, stupid!Voldemort, idiotic!Dumbledore, immature/weak!Harry etc. Meh, those typoes still make good material if you intend to flame the author, I guess.

 

You know, Lilly is actually a name.

Just not Lily Potter's.

And another downside of MNFF is the very limited filtering options.

 

Actually, the fifth book was my favorite of the series... I dunno where you were going with that.