You can't open the book of my life and jump in the middle. Like woman, I'm a mystery.

Mal ,'Our Mrs. Reynolds'


Fan Fiction: Writers, Readers, and Enablers  

This thread is for fanfic recs, links, and discussion, but not for actual posting of fanfic.


Dani - Nov 21, 2003 4:24:46 pm PST #6691 of 10000
I believe vampires are the world's greatest golfers

Oh my freaking lord.

Dana, it's cruel to make a seven-months-pregnant woman laugh so hard.

They were all beautifully atrocioius, but for sheer non-sequiturness I think the Florida Marlins reference wins my vote.


Rebecca Lizard - Nov 21, 2003 5:46:36 pm PST #6692 of 10000
You sip / say it's your crazy / straw say it's you're crazy / as you bicycle your soul / with beauty in your basket

... So, Google isn't picking it up.

Can I have a link to this woman's website?


Connie Neil - Nov 22, 2003 7:05:40 am PST #6693 of 10000
brillig

Sometimes I feel like the only person left who knows the difference between "reign" and "rein."

No. No, you're not. I practically give universal recs anytime I see it used correctly.


Dana - Nov 22, 2003 7:28:31 am PST #6694 of 10000
I'm terrifically busy with my ennui.

Can I have a link to this woman's website?

a) I wouldn't want to link to the site anyway, because of referrer logs, and

b) She doesn't have one. It's posted on a Nikita board.


Theodosia - Nov 22, 2003 8:10:02 am PST #6695 of 10000
'we all walk this earth feeling we are frauds. The trick is to be grateful and hope the caper doesn't end any time soon"

I reserve my scorn for 'phase' and 'faze' substitutions.


P.M. Marc - Nov 22, 2003 10:37:18 am PST #6696 of 10000
So come, my friends, be not afraid/We are so lightly here/It is in love that we are made; In love we disappear

Even for a horsey type, it's easy to type reign for rein, and then the freaking spellcheck doesn't catch it.

And, err, *ifyou'renotusingbetas* it can slip through.

Though I caught it the one time I typed it wrong, it was in a beta'd story, and it didn't slip through, I'm always worried that it will.

Being as I'm using betas less and less for shorter material. Which is an uncomfortable thing to admit to, but true.

Coastal, for example, I didn't send through a beta pass. I just re-read and tweaked with it a few days later, when I got home from L.A. I feel like I'm going to hell for this.


Elena - Nov 22, 2003 2:42:33 pm PST #6697 of 10000
Thanks for all the fish.

Past and passed is my particular red flag.


brenda m - Nov 22, 2003 4:15:54 pm PST #6698 of 10000
If you're going through hell/keep on going/don't slow down/keep your fear from showing/you might be gone/'fore the devil even knows you're there

Honestly? I make more of those kinds of mistakes since I became an editor than I did before. Usually I catch them as I'm typing, but it really annoys me. Because in my mind, rein and reign or their and there and other homophones aren't (weren't) remotely the same word. When I started really editing other people's work, I had to school myself to think of them that way to make sure I caught any misuse. So now the association is there, and my fingers aren't always on the same wavelength with my brain.

But yeah, people use betas for a reason, and if they don't they should learn to check their work for things like this. I can forgive it once in a while, or in a quick drabble that someone throws up, but my patience is limited.


Susan W. - Nov 22, 2003 6:52:17 pm PST #6699 of 10000
Good Trouble and Righteous Fights

I mistype homophones all the time, but I've seen "free reign" used so often and so consistently that I'm convinced it's almost always a true mistake rather than a mere typo. Same for "tow the party line," which drives me equally batshit.


Nutty - Nov 22, 2003 6:59:33 pm PST #6700 of 10000
"Mister Spock is on his fanny, sir. Reports heavy damage."

I give passes to most homophone errors, if they're rare.

Still makes me laugh every time I see "baited breath", though.

And I'm with Susan: I grind my teeth every time someone misuses an old expression like "loose cannon" or "toe the line", showing with breathtaking clarity his/her failure to understand the literal/historical meaning of the expression.

Actually the one thing that absolutely guarantees my inability to read far is rampant misuse of punctuation. I used to know a brilliant writer who couldn't/didn't edit for shit, and was riddled with misspellings and short line, long line disease etc. But she used punctuation pretty well, and I could read her just fine; whereas a lot of the bad fanfic either jumps blissfully into a sea of comma splices or eschews punctuation marks entirely.