I don't have a lot of time to just sit down and read anymore--it's one of the things I really really miss about being a kid. I devoured It in maybe a week as a ten-year-old, and when I was twelve I once read eight 200 page books within twenty-four hours. Watching that huge stack of library books lower book by book was so satisfying, and the books themselves were wonderful.
My point there kids is, read while you're young. Do as much as you can, because the older you get the tougher it's going to be to find that time and cultivate those skills.
Anyway, now that I'm an Adult™ I have trouble finding time to read--so most of my reading on a day-to-day basis consists of plays I have to read for class or, most voluminous, fanfiction. Some fanfiction is really really good. Other fanfictions are really, really bad.
The vast majority are okay. But there are a lot of good fanfictions that get a total pass from me just because of the formatting--the ideas are solid, the writing is fine, maybe it's not the best work in the world but I'd read a couple thousand words if the formatting just weren't so nonstandardized.
And I get it--schools don't teach you things like this anymore. No teacher ever told me to do any of these things--with the exception of indentations when starting new paragraphs, I had to teach myself how to write and format by extensive reading on my own.
So in the interest of helping writers, new and old, fanfiction or original content, here are some of my formatting pet peeves.
1. One Paragraph, Many Speakers
Make sure that when a new character starts speaking, you switch paragraphs. Even if this means having several one-sentence paragraphs, do it. It'll make the work more streamlined and less cluttered, it increases the white-space-to-text ratio, and it very clearly indicates that someone new is speaking, meaning you can use fewer dialogue tags, and your audience doesn't have to put in too much brainpower.
Your audience sometimes needs to be able to work things out on their own, it's in the contract, but when it comes to formatting, don't make them work any harder than they absolutely have to.
2. " " or ' ' Used For Thoughts
This gets me. This gets me really hard. I'm sitting there, reading a fic or short story online, doo doo da loo, la la la, and I see the character starts speaking, and I get into character speech mode. "Dorothy Anne should be shot," she thought.
And I always have to double-take--thought? Thought? What? Quotation marks indicate speech, not thought, that's why they're quotation marks, because we're using them to quote a person's speech.
Almost as bad are the using of 'apostrophes' to indicate thought, which just irks me on a level I don't completely understand. It's a thing, okay, we've all got them, and this thing is that these tactics confuse the reader--even if it's just momentary, that's still a moment that the reader is taken out of the story, that they have to double-back and approach from a different angle, and the goal of a writer is to minimalize those moments as close to completely as possible.
To avoid this confusion, there are two ways to indicate thought that aren't intrusive--you can just state it; She thought this was a really bad idea; he thought about the cat on the roof, and wondered how it got there.
That method is quick and simple, though it creates a little more distance, and summarizes more than it shows exactly what a character is thinking. If you're looking to quote the exact thought, I recommend the second method; italics: Thus is ludicrous, she thought, climbing into her car. "Hand me a Kleenex." There's no way Jonathan could have done any of this.
This way the thought is clearly separated from typical narration, and when the character does speak aloud, the audience can tell what's being said aloud and what's being privately pondered upon.
3. ' ' For Speech Spoken Aloud
Again, quotation mark drama will be the death of me. Here's a quick rundown of what kind of quotation signifier to use in different situations:
Speech: Quotation marks. Always quotation marks.
Ex, "Hey Mom," Jenny called, "Can you help me with this?"
Exceptions: I really need to punch someone in the face, Jenny thought, and didn't realize she'd spoken aloud until every eye in the room was on her./He asked his mother for a tissue and she told him to go fuck himself.
Quotations outside of speech: Quotation marks.
Ex. He took the "pencil box" and buried it deep beneath the ground.
Quotations within speech: Double apostrophe
Ex. "Your 'pencil box' is really starting to unnerve me," she said, backing away slowly.
4. Massive Blocks Of Text
A paragraph that goes on for an entire page isn't one most people are likely to sit through--not unless you are really, superbly, extremely skilled, but if that's the case you're unlikely to do this. Big paragraphs in and of themselves are fine in moderation, and sometimes necessary. But many many big paragraphs can, and should, be broken up into smaller bite-sized chunks.
Sometimes, especially online, an author breaks up their paragraphs into perfectly manageable bits, but due to the lack of a double-space option, the paragraphs clump together to form a massive text wall nonetheless, which drives off prospective readers. In this situation, make sure you press "enter" twice between paragraphs; this will serve in the place of the double-space option and help your readers break the text up. Plus, it helps them avoid losing their place.
... I should probably stop forgetting to do this on my own blog. Whoops. Well, I never said I was perfect, did I?
If you have any formatting or fanfiction pet peeves you'd like to share, feel free to drop them in the comments section below!
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