Originally written by sinaddict, edited by herowlness:

There's really no excuse for bad spelling with the advent of the spell-check, and most grammar problems can be solved with grammar checker in Microsoft word processors.

Not only do grammar and spelling mistakes distract readers from your story, they look incredibly amateurish. We all learn the basic rules of the English language by sixth or seventh grade. Understandably, those who have learned English as a second language may have a bit more difficulty picking up the intricacies of the language, but this is an excellent example of where having a beta that is strong in grammar and spelling can really be an asset to your writing.

By no means is this article supposed to be a course in grammar or anything; it's simply a reminder of the basic rules that you'll probably need to know at some point in your life, particularly if you want your story to be widely read and recommended. After all, nothing gets me hitting the back button on my browser quicker than seeing a plethora of spelling and grammar errors within the first paragraph or two of the fic.

The article is broken up into the following sections to keep this page shorter, and to give you a chance to brush up on whatever you're having problems with, without making you search through one really long page for it.

01. ( CAPITALIZATION )

02. ( ABBREVIATIONS AND SYMBOLS )

03. ( TENSE SHIFTS )

04. PUNCTUATION
a. ( Ending Sentences )
b. ( Commas and Semi-Colons )
c. ( Parentheses and Asides  )
d. ( Ellipses and Dashes )
e. ( Apostrophes and Hyphens )

05. ( SUBJECT AND VERB AGREEMENT )

06. ( RUN-ONS AND FRAGMENTS )

07. ( QUOTING AND DIALOGUE )

08. ( ''SAID'' AND DIALOGUE TAGS )

If you have any questions or need clarification, feel free to ask.

Still to come? Lesson number nine - Homonyms and misused words. Hoo boy, do I have a whole slew of them to write up.

( List of words that will be included - if you have any others that you think should be added, please let me know! )

By mastermia with invaluable suggestions by herowlness

( Organization and the Friendly Neighborhood Fanfic Writer: Plot, Setting, Time, Characters, Point of View and Tone. )

by sinaddict and herowlness

( Different POV's, how to choose the correct POV, and POV-specific writing tips )

by herowlness

( How to format and code and change the appearance of your text - and more! )

by mastermia

For today’s fanfiction writers, there are a myriad of on-line writing resources available. Everything from grammar guides to quotations is at your fingertips. This is a quick guide to help you navigate and find just what you are looking for.

( Click for categories and links! )

by herowlness

( What are they, why write them, and how to write them - spoilers through 1x06 ahead! )

Challenges
-coming soon!

by sinaddict and herowlness

( What is a Mary Sue, examples of Mary Sue, and how to avoid her )

Almost a month ago now, I [herowlness] posted a rant against various items in fanfiction that were driving me crazy. It started as a way for me to blow off steam and educate some of the authors on my Flist, but after exchanging comments with some others, the idea to form a fic resource community [vm_ficresource] and a beta/ConCrit community [vm_betas] was born.

I don't know as many people in this fandom, so I don't always feel comfortable offering constructive criticism to authors, as I don't know if they'll be receptive to that sort of feedback. If they/you aren't - that's completely okay. We all have different motivations for writing and posting our fanfiction. However, I thought that this community could be an asset to VM fanfiction.

Through this journal, I'm hoping that authors will notice some things about their own writing that maybe could use some improvement. And that, in turn, will hopefully only further improve the already high level of quality writing within this fandom. Further, I'm hoping that maybe some of the resource articles will challenge authors to try writing fics in a different style than they are used to - different POV, different character/pairing, different style, etc.

If you have any suggestions for resource articles or know of any VM-specific fanfiction challenges that are going on elsewhere, feel free to leave a comment for the moderators or send an email to mousebumples [at] gmail.com.

Thanks!

by sinaddict, edited by herowlness

( What is beta reading? What do you look for when you're doing it? )

by sinaddict

( A rant on why honest feedback is helpful, and how NOT to respond to constructive criticism. )