I completely get where you're coming from. Every single exhibit mentioned here rang true to me! An 'Author's Note' in the middle of a chapter is one of the most annoying things ever! And call me a grammar nazi but I've stopped reading way too many stories midway that I thought had the potential to turn out good, purely because the grammatical errors were too blaring to ignore. Forget fancy words and adjectives, there are extremely basic grammatical errors like the ones you mentioned in too many of the stories around here - 'your' for 'you're' and lack of capitalization where necessary. And that is a pity because I really do think that some of them have a brilliant plot!

I'm super happy you posted this little bit of informative material. :) it makes me super happy to see that I'm not the only one on the internet that enjoys correct grammar and punctuation and appreciates the difference thrushes in a story. Personally, I'm incredibly nit-picky about what I read and follow on Fictionpress, livejournal, and most other fic and fan-fic websites, so I'm always overjoyed to find a story That's really worth my time.

Thank you for this guide. The appearance one is the one I usually over do and reading has made me realize that it has to stop so thank you!

It was extremely odd for me to read this. For one, all the points you made were EXACTLY the ones I use when I rant about poorly written stories. No, you did not waste ten minutes of my time, instead you gave me a rather well-spent ten minute break from studying for finals. So, thank you! I have one more point to give you. Don't you find it incredibly cliche when the main character of a story (typically a female in a romance story) has an extremely tragic back story? Abandoned by their parents, or one of their parents, lost a family member, or even many, are poor and take on many jobs just to survive...it's always the same! Can't people fall in love without having some sort of tragedy in their life? I think, yes.

I appreciate this. like a lot.
thanks for sharing "guides" in writing a good story and in becoming a good author :)

You go!

Thank you for writing this! I believe it will make mine as well as many other stories better written! :)

AMEN!

Thank you for writing this. I hope it spreads awareness and self-reflection to our fellow writers. I think I might be guilty with one or two or more of these. Toodles!

I think this is the most accurate rant on anything accurate ever in the history of accuracy. In all seriousness, you've pretty much taken all of my pet peeves and put them into a wonderful commentary. I swear, I see this not only on Fictionpress, but Fanfiction all the time. It's really sad. Really.

THANK YOU. This was refreshing and funny and so very true.

Thank you! Thank you so much. I could not have said it any better myself.

I laughed and was inwardly prideful that I don't make these mistakes and haven't made most of them since I was in elementary school. That said, how does one tie their shoelaces both quickly AND lazily?

This will help me a lot in the future. Thanking for ranting. :)

Haha, this is a pretty astute guide. I cracked up reading some of those examples :)
You're absolutely right about the reviewing part; sometimes it feels like there's only a point to reviewing if you know the author will see the review, and pretty much the only way to know that is if the author shows some signs of life!

I love you. You have a low opinion of men, but who cares? You are my new idol. Thank you so, so much.