Web sites created for fans to write fictional stories are murdering all the rules of grammar and diction. Sites such as fanfiction.net and fictionpress.com respectively encourage writers to "Unleash your Imagination" and "Let the Words Flow", but neither ask writers to check their spelling or sentence composition. Although I’ve never written on either of these sites, or the others just like them, I once avidly read posted fictional stories about television shows and movies.
Fans of whomever or whatever can rewrite plots or make up stories about their favorite and/or fictional characters. Many of the stories are better than the actual movies, cartoons, books, etc., but much of the sentence composition in the stories would make editors weep.
Since the stories are written by one person without editors or critics, many typos are undetected. I never cared about the writing mistakes-until I started making them in my schoolwork.
My journalism professors often say that if a person wants to write well, they have to read great writing. I stopped reading “fanfiction” as often because of the mistakes. I began to overlook the mistakes and “just go with the flow”. After all, I knew what the author was trying to say. Soon, the mistakes appeared in my own work. I duplicated the writing that I was used to reading.
Has anyone had a similar experience where they unconsciously duplicated a form of writing? Was is good writing, or bad writing?
I don't think I've ever started duplicating mistakes just because I've read them a lot. However, reading bad writing does not help my writing abilities either. I read mostly well-written books and articles, but I also read a lot of crap online. Hopefully, as long as I don't read entirely poorly writing junk, I'll be OK.
ReplyDeleteP.S. - I'm glad to see I'm not the only person in class nerdy enough to have read fanfiction.