• By Mariko Takahashi
• Published 03/23/2011
• Writing

Growing up, I learned proper English grammar and usage in my English classes, and I have carried this over to my writings. Whether I wrote custom papers, essays, poems, rantings, and even fan fiction, I make sure I always observe correct structure of sentences, right punctuation, syntax and grammar. I’m not an all-out grammar nazi, but sometimes, I can’t help but secretly nit-pick on readings with bad grammar. This is especially true for fan fiction writings. I have read some fan fics with really bad grammar, and though the author might not be writing a troll fanfiction, I still can’t help but cringe as I read it.The story featured popular celebrities from Hong Kong such as Miriam Yeung, Daniel Wu, Louis Koo, and Edison Chen. Miriam Yeung is the main source figure in the story, wherein she is portrayed as an angel-in-training who was sent down to earth to understand humans so she’ll earn her angel wings. Along the way, she meets Louis Koo and Daniel Wu. There’s a love angle to this story, and I got the plot of it immediately. I like angels, I like Miriam Yeung (my only favorite actress, because I’m not into celebrities that much), and I like it when Miriam portrays an angel. But I can’t help but feel uncomfortable reading it, because of the punctuation and spelling errors:1. Too many ellipsis in-between sentences;2. Non-capitalization of proper nouns (miriam, louis);3. Non-capitalization of the pronouns “I” and “I’m”;4. Incorrect sentence structure (it’s like the author wants to make it as a movie script dialouge).To be honest, I have nothing against Angel, the author, although she admitted it in her comment that she wasn’t obsessed with the spelling and grammar and wrote it purely for entertainment. Someone told her that the story was hilarious, but she really needs to fix up her grammar mistakes. I have to agree with this person, though.In fairness, I enjoyed reading it, even if it was annoying to read. It made me laugh secretly and relieved my stress. It’s really cute to think of Miriam as an angel (I love Miriam Yeung!). So I guess the author managed to get her point across in writing an entertaining real person story. Kudos to her! But as constructive criticism to all fan fic authors out there, if you plan to write in English, please observe proper grammar, spelling and punctuation. So that your readers won’t have a headache reading your story on screen and trying to understand what you want to say. It can help a lot in developing your writing and English skills and add to that, attracting more fans in reading your story. This applies to every one, fanfic author or not.

Loves to read and write a lot.

by Mariko Takahashi